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^- iO V iK^
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THE MELTING-POT
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO
ATLANTA - SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON - BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
THE MELTING-POT
DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS
BY
ISRAEL ZANGWILL
AUTHOR OF " CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO," " MERELY
MARY ANN," ETC., ETC.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1909
A2l rights reserved
LIBRARY of CONGRESS
Two Copies Received
Copynghi Entry
CLASS *^ AXc. NO.
^^cV
Copyright, 1909,
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1909.
NotfaoolJ ^tess
J. S. Gushing Co. — lleiw ick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
IN RESPECTFUL RECOGNITION OF HIS STRENUOUS STRUGGLE
AGAINST THE FORCES THAT THREATEN TO SHIPWRECK
THE GREAT REPUBLIC
WHICH CARRIES MANKIND AND ITS FORTUNES,
THIS PLAY IS, BY HIS KIND PERMISSION,
CORDIALLY DEDICATED
NOTE
The rights of performing or translating this play,
which is published simultaneously in England and
America and has been performed in both countries,
are strictly reserved by the author. The perform-
ing rights for the United States and Canada have
been exclusively acquired by Messrs. Liebler and Co.,
to whom, as to Mr. Hugh Ford, the Stage-producer,
and to Mr. Walker Whiteside and the rest of the
players, the author desires to express his indebted-
ness for their artistic execution of his ideas.
THE CAST
[As first produced at the Columbia Theatre, Washington, on
the fifth of October, 1908]
3 David Quixano Walker Whiteside
Mendel Quixano Henry Bergman
_:> Baron Revendal John Blair
^ Quincy Davenport, Jr Grant Stewart
> Herr Pappelmeister Henry Vogel
i Vera Revendal Chrystal Heme
^ Baroness Revendal Leonora Von Ottinger
Frau Quixano Louise Muldener
Kathleen O'Reilly Mollie Revel
ACT I
[ The scene is laid in the living-room of the small home of the
QuiXANOS in the Richmond or non-Jewish borough of
New York, about five o'clock of a February afternoon.
At centre back is a double street-door giving on a columned
veranda in the Colonial st)'le. Nailed on the right-
hand door-post gleams a Mezuzah, a small metal case,
containing a Biblical passage. On the right of the door
is a small hat-stand holding Mendel's ovei'coat, um-
brella, etc. There are two windows, one on either side
of the door, and tht'ee other exits, one down-stage on the
left leading to the stairs and family bedrooms, two on the
right, the upper leading to Kathleen's bedroom, and
the lower to the kitchen. Over the street-door is pinned
the Stars and Stripes. On the left wall, in the upper
corner of which is a inusic-stand, are bookshelves of
large mouldering Hebrew books, and over them is hung
a Mizrach, or Hebrew picture, to show it is the East
Wall. Other pictures round the room include Wagner,
Columbus, Lincoln, and ''^ Jews at the Wailing Place.^''
Down-stage, about a yard from the left wall, stands
David's roll-desk, open and displaying a medley of music,
a quill pen, etc. On the tvall behind the desk hangs a
book-rack with brightly bound English books. A grand
piano stands at left centre back, holding a pile of music
and one huge Hebrew tome. There is a table in the
middle of the room covered with a re^ cloth and a litter
of objects, music, and tiewspapers. The fireplace, in
which a fire is bui-ning, occupies the centre of the right
B I
2 THE MELTING-POT
wall, and by it stands an armchair on which lies another
heavy mouldy Hebrew tome. The mantel holds a clock,
two silver candlesticks, etc. A chiffonier stafids against
the back wall on the right. There are a few cheap
chairs. The whole effect is a curious blend of shab-
biness, Americanism, Jeivishness, atid tnusic, all four
being combined in the figure of Mendel Quixano, who,
in a black skull-cap, a seedy velvet jacket, and red carpet-
slippers, is discovered standing at the open street-door.
He is an elderly music master with a fine Jewis^ face,
pathetically furrowed by misfortunes, and a short
grizzled beard.'\
MENDEL
Good-bye, Johnny ! . . . And don't forget to prac-
tise your scales.
[Shutting door, shivers.]
Ugh ! It'll snow again, I guess.
[He yawns, heaves great sigh of relief, walks toward the
table, and perceives a music-roll^
The chump ! He's forgotten his music !
[He picks it up and runs toward the window on the left,
muttering furiously i\
Brainless, earless, thumb-fingered Gentile !
[Throwing open the window?^
Here, Johnny ! You can't practise your scales if
you leave 'em here !
[He throws out the music-roll and shivers again at the cold
as he shuts the window?^
THE MELTING-POT 3
Ugh ! And I must go out to that miserable dancing
class to scrape the rent together.
\_He goes to the fire and warms his hands. '\
Ach Gott ! What a life ! What a life !
\_He drops dejectedly into the armchair. Finding himself
sitting uncomfortably on the big book, he half rises and
pushes it to the side of the seat. After a7i instant an
irate Irish voice is heard fro7n behind the kitchen door.'\
KATHLEEN
\Without?^
Divil take the butther ! I wouldn't put up with ye,
not for a hundred dollars a week.
MENDEL
\Raising himself to listen, heaves great sigh?)^
Ach! Mother and Kathleen again !
KATHLEEN
\_Still louder. '\
Pots and pans and plates and knives. Sure 'tis
enough to make a saint chrazy.
FRAU QUIXANO
\_Equally loudly from kitchen^
Wos schreist dti ? Gott iti Hinimel, dieses America !
KATHLEEN
\_Opening door of kitchoi toward the end of Frau Quixano's
speech, but turning back, with her hand visible on the
door.'\
4 THE MELTING-POT
What's that ye're afther jabberin' about America?
If ye don't like God's own counthry, sure ye can go
back to your own Jerusalem, so ye can.
MENDEL
One's very servants are anti-Semites,
KATHLEEN
\_Banging door as she enters excitedly, carrying a folded white
table-cloth. She is a pretty Irish maid of all work. '\
Bad luck to me, if iver I take sarvice again with
liaythen Jews.
\She perceives Mendel huddled up on the armchair, gives a
little scream, and drops the cloth.'\
Och, I thought ye was out!
MENDEL
\_Rising.~\
And so you dared to be rude to my mother.
KATHLEEN
\_Atigrily, as she picks up the cloth.'\
She said I put mate on a butther-plate.
MENDEL
Well, you know that's against her religion.
KATHLEEN
But I didn't do nothing of the soort. I ounly put
butther on a mate-plate.
THE MELTING-POT 5
MENDEL
That's just as bad. What the Bible forbids —
KATHLEEN
\^Lays the cloth on a chair and vigorotisly clears off the litter
0/ things on the table. ~\
Sure, the Pope himself couldn't remimber it all.
Why don't ye have a sinsible religion.?
MENDEL
You are impertinent. Attend to your work.
[Zr<f seats himself at the piano.'\
KATHLEEN
And isn't it laying the Sabbath cloth I am.?
\She bangs down articles from the table into their right
places J\
MENDEL
Don't answer me back.
\_He begins to play softly. '\
KATHLEEN
Faith, I must answer somebody back — and sorra a
word of English she understands. I might as well
talk to a tree.
MENDEL
You are not paid to talk, but to work.
\_Playing on softly. '\
6 THE MELTING-POT
KATHLEEN
And who ca7t work with an ould woman nagglin'
and grizzlin' — ?
\^She removes the red table-doth.'\
Mate-plates, butther-plates, kosJier, trepha, sure I've
smashed up folks' crockery and had less fuss made
ouver it.
MENDEL
\Stops playrngj]
Breaking crockery is one thing, and breaking a re-
ligion another. Didn't you tell me when I engaged
you that you had lived in other Jewish families.-'
KATHLEEN
\_Angrily.~\
And is it a liar ye'd make me out now ? I've lived
wid clothiers and pawnbrokers and Vaudeville actors,
but I niver shtruck a house where mate and butther
couldn't be as paceable on the same plate as eggs
and bacon — the most was that some wouldn't ate
the bacon onless 'twas killed kosher.
MENDEL
\_TukIed.']
Ha! Ha! Ha! Hal Ha!
KATHLEEN
{^Furious, pauses with the white table-cloth half on. "l
And who's ye laughin' at ? I give ye a week's
notice. I won't be made fun of by Jews, no, begorra,
that I won't.
\_She pulls the cloth on viciously. "^
THE MELTING-POT 7
MENDEL
\Sobered, rising from the piano.']
Don't talk nonsense, Kathleen. Nobody is making
fun of you. Have a little patience — you'll soon learn
our ways.
KATHLEEN
\_More mildly.']
Whose ways, yours or the ould lady's or Mr.
David's? To-night being yer Sabbath, yoitll be
blowing out yer bedroom candle, though ye won't
light it ; Mr. David'll light his and blow it out too ;
and the misthress won't even touch the candleshtick.
There's three religions in this house, not wan.
MENDEL
\_Conghs uneasily.]
Hem ! Well, you learn the mistress's ways — that
will be enough.
KATHLEEN
\_Goi7ig to mantelpiece^
But how can I understand her jabberin' and jib-
berin' } — I'm not a monkey !
\_She takes up a silver candlestick.]
Why doesn't she talk English like a Christian .-•
MENDEL
\_Irritated.]
If you are going on like that, perhaps you had bet-
ter not remain here.
8 THE MELTING-FOr
I^TITLEEN
\_Blazing up, forgetting to take the second candlestick.']
And who's axin' ye to remain here ? Faith, I'll
lave this blissid minit !
MENDEL
\_Taken aback.]
No, you can't do that.
KATHLEEN
And why can't I ? Ye can keep yer dirthy wages.
\_She dumps down the candlestick violently on the table, and
exit hysterically into her bedroom.]
MENDEL
\Sighing heavily.]
She might have put on the other candlestick.
\_Hegoes to mantel and takes it. A rat-tat-tat at street-door.]
Who can that be ?
{^Running to ELathleen's door, holding candlestick forget-
fully low.]
Kathleen ! There's a visitor !
KATHLEEN
\_Angrily from within.]
I'm not here !
MENDEL
So long as you're in this house, you must do your
work.
[Kathleen's head emerges sulkily.]
THE MELTING-POT 9
KATHLEEN
I tould ye I was lavin' at wanst. Open the door
yerself.
MENDEL
I'm not dressed to receive visitors — it may be a
new pupil
\_He goes toward staircase, aiitomatically carrying off the
candlestick which Kathleen has not caught sight of.
Exit on the left.'\
KATHLEEN
\_Moving tozvard the street-door.'\
The divil fly away wid me if iver I set foot again
among haythen furriners —
\She throws open the door angrily and then the outer door.
Vera Revendal, a beautiful girl in furs and muff,
with a touch of the exotic in her appearance, steps into
the little vestibule.~\
VERA
Is Mr. Quixano at home ?
KATHLEEN
\_Sulkily.'\
Which Mr. Ouixano .?
VERA
\_Surprised.~\
Are there two Mr. Quixanos ?
lO THE MELTING-POT
KATHLEEN
{Tartly?^
Didn't I say there was ?
VERA
Then I want the one who plays.
KATHLEEN
There isn't a one who plays.
VERA
Oh, surely!
KATHLEEN
Ye're wrong entirely. They both plays.
VERA
\_Smiling^
Oh, dear! And I suppose they both play the
violin.
KATHLEEN
Ye're wrong again. One plays the piano — ounly
the young ginthleman plays the fiddle — Mr. David I
VERA
\_Eagerly.'\
Ah, Mr. David — that's the one I want to see.
KATHLEEN
He's out.
\She abruptly shuts the doorJ]
THE MELTING-POT II
VERA
\Stopping Us closing.'^
Don't shut the door !
KATHLEEN
\_Snappify.']
More chance of seeing hira out there than in here !
VERA
But I want to leave a message.
KATHLEEN
Then why don't ye come inside ? It's freezin'
me to the bone.
\_She sneezes.']
Atchoo !
VERA
I'm sorry.
[■5"/^^ comes in and closes the door.']
Will you please say Miss Revendal called from
the Settlement, and we are anxiously awaiting his
answer to the letter asking him to play for us on —
KATHLEEN
How can I tell him all that.-* I'm not here.
VERA
Eh?
12 THE MELTING-POT
KATHLEEN
I'm lavin' — just as soon as I've packed me thrunk.
VERA
Then I must write the message — can I write at
this desk ?
KATHLEEN
If the ould woman don't come in and shpy you.
VERA
What old woman ?
KATHLEEN
Ould Mr. Quixano's mother — she wears a black
wig, she's that houly.
VERA
\Be'wildered.'\
What } . . . But why should she mind my writ-
ing?
KATHLEEN
Look at the clock.
[Vera looks at the clock, more puzzled than everJ]
If ye're not quick, it'll be Shabbos.
VERA
Be what .''
THE MELTING-POT 13
KATHLEEN
\_Holds tip hands of horror.'\
Ye don't know what Shabbos is ! A Jewess not
know her own Sunday !
VERA
[ Outraged^
I, a Jewess ! How dare you ?
KATHLEEN
\_Flustered^
Axin' your pardon, miss, but ye looked a bit
f urrin and I —
VERA
\_Frozen^
I am a Russian.
\_Slotvly and dazedly. '\
Do I understand that Mr. Ouixano is a Jew .''
KATHLEEN
Two Jews, miss. Both of 'em.
VERA
Oh, but it is impossible.
\_Dazedly to hersel/.'\
He had such charming manners.
\_Aloud again. ~\
You seem to think everybody Jewish. Are you
sure Mr. Quixano is not Spanish .-" — the name sounds
Spanish.
14 THE MELTING-POT
KATHLEEN
Shpanish !
\_She picks up the old Hebrew book on the armchair. '\
Look at the ould lady's book. Is that Shpanish?
\She points to the Mizrach.']
And that houly picture that the ould lady says her
paternoster to ! Is that Shpanish? And that houly
table-cloth with the houly silver candle —
\_Cry of sudden astonishment.'^
Why, I've ounly put —
\She looks toward mantel and titters a great cry of alarm as
she drops the Hebrew book on the floor ?^
Why, Where's the other candleshtick! Mother in
hivin, they'll say I shtole the candleshtick!
\_Ferceiving that Vera is dazedly moving toward door.'\
Beggin' your pardon, miss, —
\_She is about to move a chair toivard the desk.'\
VERA
Thank you, I've changed my mind.
KATHLEEN
That's more than I'll do.
VERA
[Hand on door."]
Don't say I called at all.
THE MELTING-POT 1 5
KATHLEEN
Plaze yerself. Phwat name did ye say ?
[Mendel enters hastily from his bedroom, completely trans-
mogrified, minus the skull-cap, with a Prince Albert coat,
and boots instead of slippers, so that his appearance is
gentlemanly. Kathleen begins to search quietly and
tmostentatiously in the table-drawers, the chiffonier, etc.,
etc., for the candlestick.']
MENDEL
I am sorry if I have kept you waiting —
\_IIe rubs his hands importantly.']
You see I have so many pupils already. Won't you
sit down?
\_He indicates a chair.']
VERA
\_Flushing, embarrassed, releasing her hold of the door
handled]
Thank you — I — I — ■! didn't come about piano-
forte lessons.
MENDEL
\_Sighing in disappointment?^
Ach!
VERA
In fact I — er — it wasn't you I wanted at all — I
was just going.
MENDEL
{^Politely:]
Perhaps I can direct you to the house you are
lookinor for.
l6'^ THE MELTING-POT
VERA
Thank you, I won't trouble you.
\_She turns fdward the door again.'\
MENDEL
Allow me !
\_He opens the door for herJ]
VERA
\_Hesitaiing, struck by his manners, struggling with her anti-
Jewish prejudice^
It — it — was your son I wanted.
MENDEL
\His face lighting upj]
You mean my nephew, David. Yes, he gives
violin lessons.
\_IIe closes the door.'\
VERA
Oh, is he your nephew .?
MENDEL
I am sorry he is out — he, too, has so many pupils,
though at the moment he is only at the Crippled
Children's Home — playing to them.
VERA
How lovely of him !
\Touched and deciding to conquer her prejudice. '\
But that's just what / came about — I mean we'd
like him to play again at our Settlement. Please ask
him why he hasn't answered Miss Andrews's letter.
THE MELTING-POT 1 7
MENDEL
\_Astonished?^
He hasn't answered your letter ?
VERA
Oh, I'm not Miss Andrews ; I'm only her assist-
ant.
MENDEL
I see — Kathleen, whatever are you doing under
the table ?
[Kathleen, hi her huntii.g around for the candlestick, is
notv stooping and lifting up the table-cloth.~\
KATHLEEN
Sure. the fiend has witched away the candleshtick.
MENDEL
^^Embarrassed. ]
The candlestick ? Oh — I — I think you'll find it
in my bedroom.
KATHLEEN
Wisha, now !
\She goes into his bedroom^
MENDEL
[ Turning apologetically to Vera.]
I beg your pardon, Miss Andrews, I mean Miss — •
er —
VERA
Revendal.
c
1 8 THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
\Slightly more interested^
Revendal ? Then you must be the Miss Revendal
David told me about !
VERA
\_Blushi}ig^
Why, he has only seen me once — the time he
played at our Roof-Garden Concert.
MENDEL
Yes, but he was so impressed by the way you
handled those new immigrants — the Spirit of the
Settlement, he called you.
VERA
\_Modestly.'\
Ah, no — Miss Andrews is that. And you will tell
him to answer her letter at once, won't you, because
there's only a week now to our Concert.
\_A gust of ivind shakes the windows. She smiles.']
Naturally it will not be on the Roof Garden.
, MENDEL
\_Half to himself.']
Fancy David not saying a word about it to me!
Are you sure the letter was mailed }
THE MELTING-POT 1 9
VERA
I mailed it myself — a week ago. And even in
New York —
\_She smiles. Re-enter Kathleen 7Vith the recovered candle-
stick.']
KATHLEEN
Bedad, ye're as great a shleep-walker as Mr.
David !
\_She places the candlestick on the table and ?noves toward
her bedroom.]
MENDEL
Kathleen !
KATHLEEN
\_Pursuing her walk without turning.]
I'm not here !
MENDEL
Did you take in a letter for Mr. David about a week
ago?
\Smili71g at Miss Revendal.]
He doesn't get many, you see.
KATHLEEN
[ Tur7ti7tg.]
A letter 1 Sure, I took in ounly a postcard from
Miss Johnson, telling him she —
VERA
And you don't remember a letter — a large letter
■ — last Saturday — with the seal of our Settlement .''
20 THE MELTING-POT
KATHLEEN
Last Saturday wid a seal, is it ? Sure, how could I
forgit it ?
MENDEL
Then you did take it in ?
KATHLEEN
Ye're wrong entirely. 'Twas the misthress took
it in.
MENDEL
l^To Vera.]
I am sorry the boy has been so rude.
KATHLEEN
But the misthress didn't give it him at wanst — she
hid it away bekaz it was Shabbos.
MENDEL
Oh, dear — and she has forgotten to give it to him.
Excuse me.
\_He makes a hurried exit to the kitchenJ]
KATHLEEN
And excuse me — I've me thrunk to pack.
\_She goes toward her bedroom, pattses at the doorJ]
And ye'll witness I don't pack the candleshtick.
\_Emphatic exit.~\
THE MELTING-POT 21
VERA
\Still dazed.'\
A Jew ! That wonderful boy a Jew ! . . . But
then so was David the shepherd-youth with his harp
and his psalms, the sweet singer in Israel.
[She surveys the ivom aiid its contents with interest. The
windows rattle once or twice in the rising wind. The
light gets g7-adually less. She picks ttp the huge Hebrew
tome on the piano and puts it down with a slight smile as
if overwhelmed by the weight of alien antiquity. Then
she goes over to the desk and picks up the printed fnusic.'\
Mendelssohn's Concerto, Tartini's Sonata in G
Minor, Bach's Chaconne, ...
\_She looks up at the book-}-ack.~\
"History of the American Commonwealth," "Cy-
clopaedia of History," "History of the Jews" — he
seems very fond of history. Ah, there's Shelley and
Tennyson.
[ With surprise."]
Nietzsche next to the Bible .-• No Russian books
apparently —
[Re-enter Mendel triumphantly with a large sealed letter^
MENDEL
Here it is ! As it came on Saturday, my mother
was afraid David would open it !
VERA
[S^niling.]
But what can you do with a letter except open it }
Any more than with an oyster .■'
22 THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
\_Stniling as he puts the letter on David's desk^
To a pious Jew letters and oysters are alike for-
bidden — at least letters may not be opened on our
day of rest.
VERA
I'm sure I couldn't rest till I'd opened mine.
\_Enter from the kitchen Frau Quixano, defending herself
with excited gesticulation. She is ati old lady with a
black wig, but her appearance is dignified, venerable
even, in no way comic. She speaks Yiddish exclusively,
that being largely the language of the Russian Pale.'\
FRAU QUIXANO
Obber ich hob gesogt sn Kathleen —
MENDEL
\frurning and going to her.'\
Yes, yes, mother, that's all right now.
FRAU QUIXANO
[/;/ horror, perceiving her Hebrew book on the floor, where
Kathleen has dropped it.]
Meiri Bnch I
\_She picks it up and kisses it piously.']
MENDEL
[^Presses her into her fireside chair.]
RitJiig, ruhig, Mutter!
[To Vera.]
She understands barely a word of English — she
won't disturb us.
THE MELTING-POT 23
VERA
Oh, but I must be going — I was so long finding
the house, and look ! it has begun to snow !
\_They both turn their heads and look at the falling sjiow.'\
MENDEL
All the more reason to wait for David — it may
leave off. He can't be long now. Do sit down.
\_H'e offers a chair.']
FRAU QUIXANO
\_Looking round suspiciously.']
Was will die SJiiksaJi ?
VERA
What does your mother say?
MENDEL
\_Half-smiling. ]
Oh, only asking what your heathen ladyship desires.
VERA
Tell her I hope she is well.
MENDEL
Das Frdiilein Iiojft dass es gcht gut —
FRAU QUIX.\NO
\Shrugging her shoulders in despairing astofiishment.]
Gut ? Und ivie soil es gut gehen — in Amerika I
\_She takes out her spectacles, and begins slowly polishing and
adjusting them.]
24 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
I understood that last word.
MENDEL
She asks how can anything possibly go well in
America!
VERA
Ah, she doesn't like America.
MENDEL
\Half-smiling.'\
Her favourite exclamation is ''A Klog zu Colmnbes-
sen ! "
VERA
What does that mean ?
MENDEL
Cursed be Columbus !
VERA
\^Laug/iingfy.']
Poor Columbus! I suppose she's just come over.
MENDEL
Oh, no, it must be ten years since I sent for her.
VERA
Really ! But your nephew was born here ?
MENDEL
No, he's Russian too. But please sit down, you
had better get his answer at once.
[Vera sifs.']
THE MELTING-POT 25
VERA
I suppose _j/^// taught him music.
MENDEL
I? I can't play the violin. He is self-taught. In
the Russian Pale he was a wonder-child. Poor David !
He always looked forward to coming to America; he
imagined I was a famous musician over here. He
found me conductor in a cheap theatre — a converted
beer-hall.
VERA
Was he very disappointed .-"
MENDEL
Disappointed! He was enchanted. He is crazy
about America.
VERA
Ah, he doesn't curse Columbus.
MENDEL
My mother came with her life behind her: David
with his life before him. Poor boy !
VERA
Why do you say poor boy.""
MENDEL
What is there before him here but a terrible strug-
gle for life .'' If he doesn't curse Columbus, he'll curse
fate. Music-lessons and dance-halls, beer-halls and
26 THE MELTING-POT
weddings — every hope and ambition will be ground
out of him, and he will die obscure and unknown.
\His head sinks on his breast. Frau Quixano is heard fainfly
sobbing over her book. The sobbing continues through-
out the seene.^
VERA
\_Half rising.']
You have made your mother cry.
MENDEL
Oh, no — she understood nothing. She always
cries on the eve of the Sabbath.
VERA
[Mystified, sinking back into her chair.]
Always cries.'' Why?
MENDEL
[Embarrassed.']
Oh, well, a Christian wouldn't understand —
VERA
Yes I could — do tell me !
MENDEL
She knows that in this great grinding America,
David and I must go out to earn our bread on Sabbath
as on week-days. She never says a word to us but
her heart is full of tears.
VERA
Poor old woman. It was wrong of us to ask your
nephew to play at the Settlement for nothing.
THE MELTING-POT 27
MENDEL »
\Rising fiercely. '\
If you offer him a fee, he shall not play. Did you
think I was begging of you?
VERA
I beg your pardon —
\Smiles^
There, / am begging of yoit. Sit down, please.
MENDEL
[ Walking away to piano. '\
I ought not to have burdened you with our troub-
les — you are too young.
VERA
\_Pathetically^
I young } If you only knew how old I am !
MENDEL
You?
VERA
■ I left my youth in Russia — eternities ago.
MENDEL
You know our Russia !
\_He goes over to her and sits down.']
28 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
Can't you see I'm a Russian, too ?
\With a faint tremulous smile.'\
I might even have been a Siberian had I stayed.
But I escaped from my gaolers.
MENDEL
You were a Revolutionist !
VERA
Who can live in Russia and not be ? So you see
trouble and I are not such strangers.
MENDEL
Who would have thought it to look at you .<* Sibe-
ria, gaolers, revolutions !
\_Rtsing.'\
What terrible things life holds !
VERA
Yes, even in free America.
[Frau Quixano's sobbing grows slightly louder."]
MENDEL
That Settlement work must be full of tragedies.
VERA
Sometimes one sees nothing but the tragedy of
things.
\_Looking toward the window.]
The snow is getting thicker. How pitilessly it
falls — like fate.
THE MELTING-POT 29
MENDEL
\_Fonowing her gaze. "^
Yes, rcy and inexorable.
\The faint sobbing of Y'R.P^5 Quixano over her book, which
has been heard throughout the scene as a sort of musical
accompanime7it, has helped to work it up to a mood of
intense sadness, intensified by the growing dusk, so that
as the tivo notv gaze at the falling snoiv, the atmosphere
seems overbrooded zvith melancholy. There is a mo-
metit or tivo without dialogue, given over to the sobbing
ofFRAU Quixano, the roar of the wind shaking the win-
dows, the qiiick falling of the snow. Suddenly a happy
voice singing ''My Country 'tis of Thee " is heard from
without.~\
FRAU QUIXANO
\_Pricking up her ears, joyously. '\
Do ist Dovidel !
MENDEL
That's David !
\_He springs up."]
Ah!
VERA
\_Murmurs in relief. "^
\_The whole attnosphere is changed to one of joyous expectation.
David is seen and heard passing the left 7vindow, still
singing the national hymn, but it breaks off abruptly as
he throws open the door and appears on the threshold
a buoyant snow- covered figure in a cloak and a broad-
brimmed hat, canying a violin case. He is a sunny,
handsome youth of the finest Russo-Jewish type. He
speaks with a slight German accent.']
30 THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
Isn't it a beautiful world, uncle ?
\He closes the inner door.']
Snow, the divine white snow —
\_Perceiving the visitor with ajnaze.]
Miss R^evendal here !
[He removes his hat and looks at her with boyish reverence
and wonder.]
VERA
\_Smilingr\
Don't look so surprised — I haven't fallen from
heaven Hke the snow. Take off your wet things.
DAVID
Oh, it's nothing ; it's dry snow.
\_He lays dowtt his violin case and brushes off the stiow froin
his cloak, which Mendel takes frotn him and hangs on
the rack, all without interrupting the dialogue.]
If I had only known you were waiting —
VERA
I am glad you didn't — I wouldn't have had those
poor little cripples cheated out of a moment of your
music.
DAVID
Uncle has told you .-' Ah, it was bully ! You
should have seen the cripples waltzing with their
crutches !
THE MELTING-POr 3 1
\_He has moved toward the old woman, and zvhile he holds
otie hand to the blaze now pats her cheek with the other
in greeting., to which she responds with a loving smile ere
she settles contentedly to slumber over her book.']
Es xvar grossartig, Munime. Even the paralysed
danced.
MENDEL
Don't exaggerate, David.
DAVID
Exaggerate, uncle ! Why, if they hadn't the use of
their legs, their arms danced on the counterpane ;
if their arms couldn't dance, their hands danced from
the wrist; and if their hands couldn't dance, they
danced with their fingers ; and if their fingers couldn't
dance, their heads danced ; and if their heads were
paralysed, why, their eyes danced — God never curses
so utterly but you've something left to dance with !
\_He moves toward his desk.]
VERA
\_Infected with his gaiety.]
You'll tell us next the beds danced.
DAVID
So they did — they shook their legs like mad !
VERA
Oh, why wasn't I there?
[^His eyes meet hers at the thought 0/ her presence.]
32 THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
Dear little cripples, I felt as if I could play them all
straight again with the love and joy jumping out of
this old fiddle.
\_He lays his hand caressingly on the violin.']
MENDEL
\_Gloo}nily.'\
But in reality you left them as crooked as ever.
DAVID
No, I didn't.
\_IIe caresses the back of his uncle's head in affectionate
rebuke.']
I couldn't play their bones straight, but I played
their brains straight. And \mnc\\-brai}is are worse
than hMXich-backs. . . .
[^Suddenly perceiving his letter on the desk.]
A letter for me!
\He takes it with boyish eagerness, then hesitates to open it.]
VERA
\Smiling.]
Oh, you may open it!
DAVID
[ Wistfully.]
May I .?
THE MELTING-POT 33
VERA
\_Smiling.'\
Yes, and quick — or it'll be SJiabbos !
[David looks up at her in wonder. '\
MENDEL
\_Smiling^
You read your letter !
DAVID
\He opens it eagerly, then smiles broadly with pleasure.']
Oh, Miss Revendal ! Isn't that great ! To play
again at your Settlement. I am getting famous.
VERA
But we can't offer you a fee.
MENDEL
[ Quickly sotto voce to Vera.]
Thank you!
DAVID
A fee ! I'd pay a fee to see all those happy immi-
grants you gather together, — Dutchmen and Greeks,
Poles and Norwegians, Swiss and Armenians. If
you only had Jews, ib would be as good as going to
Ellis Island.
VERA
\_Smiling. ]
What a strange taste ! Who on earth wants to go
to Ellis Island .''
D
34 THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
Oh, I love going to Ellis Island to watch the ships
coming in from Europe, and to think that all those
weary, sea-tossed wanderers are feeling what / felt
when America first stretched out her great mother-
hand to me!
VERA
{.Softly.-\
Were you very happy ?
DAVID
It was heaven. You must remember that all my
life I had heard of America — everybody in our town
had friends there or was going there or got money
orders from there. The earliest game I played at
was selling off my toy furniture and setting up in
America. All my life America was waiting, beckon-
ing, shining — the place where God v\^ould wipe away
tears from off all faces.
\_He ends in a half-sob.'\
MENDEL
\Rises, as in terror.']
Now, now, David, don't get excited.
[He approaches hitn.']
DAVID
To think that the same great torch of liberty which
threw its light across all the broad seas and lands
into my little garret in Russia, is shining also for
THE MELTIATG-POT 35
all those other weeping miUions of Europe, shining
wherever men hunger and are oppressed —
MENDEL
[^SoothingiyJ]
Yes, yes, David.
\Laying hand on his shoulder^
Now sit down and —
DAVID
\Unheeding.'\
Shining over the starving villages of Italy and Ire-
land, over the swarming stony cities of Poland and
Gahcia, over the ruined farms of Roumania, over the
shambles of Russia —
MENDEL
\Pleadingly.'\
David !
DAVID
Oh, Miss Revendal, when I look at our Statue of
Liberty, I just seem to hear the voice of America
crying : " Come unto me all ye that labour and are
heavy laden and I will give you rest — rest — "
\_He is now almost sobbing.~\
MENDEL
Don't talk any more — you know it is bad for you.
36 THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
But Miss Revendal asked — and I want to explain
to her what America means to me.
MENDEL
You can explain it in your American symphony.
VERA
\_Eagerly. To David.]
You compose }
DAVID
\_Emba7-rassed.'\
Oh, uncle, why did you talk of — ? uncle always —
my music is so thin and tinkhng. When I am writing
my American symphony, it seems like thunder crash-
ing through a forest full of bird songs. But next
day — oh, next day !
\_He laughs dolefully and turns awayJ]
VERA
So your music finds inspiration in America .?
DAVID
Yes — in the seething of the Crucible.
VERA
The Crucible .'' I don't understand !
THE MELTING-POT 37
DAVID
Not understand ! You, the Spirit of the Settle-
ment !
\_He rises and crosses to her and leans over the table, facing
her.^
Not understand that America is God's Crucible, the
great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are
melting and re-forming ! Here you stand, good folk,
think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand
\_Graphically illustrating it on the table. '\
in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and
histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries.
But you won't be long like that, brothers, for these
are the fires of God you've come to — these are the
fires of God. A fig for your feuds and vendettas !
Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen,
Jews and Russians — into the Crucible with you all !
God is making the American.
MENDEL
I should have thought the American was made
already — eighty millions of him.
DAVID
Eighty millions !
\_He smiles toward Vera in good-humoured derision^
Eighty millions ! Over a continent ! Why, that
cockleshell of a Britain has forty millions ! No, uncle,
the real American has not yet arrived. He is only in
38 THE MELTING-POT
the Crucible, I tell you — he will be the fusion of all
races, the coming superman. Ah, what a glorious
Finale for my symphony — if I can only write it.
VERA
But you have written some of it already ! May I
not see it ?
DAVID
\_Relapsing into boyish shyness7\
No, if you please, don't ask —
\^He moves over to his desk and nervously shuts it down and
turns the keys of drawers as though protecting his Ms.^
VERA
Won't you give a bit of it at our Concert 1
DAVID
Oh, it needs an orchestra.
VERA
But you at the violin and I at the piano —
MENDEL
You didn't tell me you played. Miss Revendal !
VERA
I told you less commonplace things.
DAVID
Miss Revendal plays quite like a professional.
THE MELTING-POT 39
VERA
\Smiling.'\
I don't feel so complimented as you expect. You
see I did have a professional training.
MENDEL
\Smiling.'\
And I thought you came to me for lessons !
[David lai/ghs.']
VERA
\_Smiling.'\
No, I went to Petersburg —
DAVID
\Dazed,'\
To Petersburg — 'i
VERA
\_Smili}ig^
Naturally. To the Conservatoire. There wasn't
much music to be had at Kishineff, a town where —
DAVID
Kishineff !
\_H'e begins to tremble.'^
VERA
\_Still smiling.']
My birthplace.
40 THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
[ Coming toward him, protectingly.'\
Calm yourself, David.
DAVID
Yes, yes — so you are a Russian !
\_He shudders violently, staggers?\
VERA
\jllarmed^
You are ill !
DAVID
It is nothing, I — not much rnusic at Kishineff !
No, only the Death-March ! . . . Mother ! Father !
Ah — cowards, murderers ! And you !
\_He shakes his fist at the air.^
You, looking on with your cold butcher's face !
O God ! O God !
l_JIe bursts into hysterical sobs and runs, shamefacedly,
throtigh the door to his room^
VERA
• \_Wildly.'\
What have I said ? What have I done ?
MENDEL
Oh, I was afraid of this, I was afraid of this.
THE MELTING-POT 4I
FRAU QUIXANO
[ Who has fallen asleep ove?- her book, wakes as if with a
sense of the horror and gazes dazedly around, addi?ig to
the thrillingness of the moment.'\
Dovidel ! Wo ist Dovidel ! Mir dacht sack —
MENDEL
\ Pressing her back to her slumbers. '\
Du trdumst, Mutter! Schlaf !
\_She sinks back to sleep. '\
VERA
[/« hoarse whisper."]
His father and mother were massacred ?
MENDEL
[/« same tense tone.'}
Before his eyes ^ father, mother, sisters, down to
the youngest babe, whose skull was battered in by a
hooHgan's heel.
VERA
How did /le escape ?
MENDEL
He was shot in the shoulder, and fell unconscious.
As he wasn't a girl, the hooligans left him for dead
and hurried to fresh sport.
VERA
Terrible ! Terrible !
[^Almost in tears.]
42 THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
\_Shrugging shoulders, hopelessly.']
It is only Jewish history ! . . . David belongs to
the species of pogrom orphan — they arrive in the
States by almost every ship.
VERA
Poor boy ! Poor boy ! And he looked so happy !
\_She half sobs.]
MENDEL
So he is most of the time — a sunbeam took human
shape when he was born. But naturally that dread-
ful scene left a scar on his brain, as the bullet left a
scar on his shoulder, and he is always liable to see red
when Kishineff is mentioned.
VERA
I will never mention my miserable birthplace to
him again.
MENDEL
But you see every few months the newspapers tell
us of another /ci^r^//^, and then he screams out against
what he calls that butcher's face, so that I tremble for
his reason. I tremble even when I see him writing
that crazy music about America, for it only means
he is brooding over the difference between America
and Russia.
VERA
But perhaps — perhaps — all the terrible memory
will pass peacefully away in his music.
THE MELTING-POT 43
MENDEL
There will always be the scar on his shoulder to
remind him — whenever the wound twinges, it brings
up these terrible faces and visions.
VERA
Is it on his right shoulder ?
MENDEL
No — on his left. For a violinist that is even
worse.
VERA
Ah, of course — the weight and the fingering.
\Subconsciously placing and fingering an imaginary violin^
MENDEL
That is why I fear so for his future — he will
never be strong enough for the feats of bravura that
the public demands.
VERA
The wild beasts ! I feel more ashamed of my
country than ever. But there's his symphony.
MENDEL
And who will look at that amateurish stuff ? He
knows so little of harmony and counterpoint — he
breaks all the rules. I've tried to give him a few
pointers — but he ought to have gone to Germany.
VERA
Perhaps it's not too late.
44 THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
\^Passionately.'\
Ah, if you and your friends could help him ! See
— I'm begging after all. But it's not for myself.
VERA
My father loves music. Perhaps he — but no ! he
lives in Kishineff. But I will think — there are
people here — I will write to you.
MENDEL
\_Fenfently^
Thank you ! Thank you !
VERA
Now you must go to him. Good-bye. Tell him
I count upon him for the Concert.
MENDEL
How good you are !
\^He follows her to the street-door. '\
VERA
\_At door.]
Say good-bye for me to your mother — she seems
asleep.
MENDEL
{Opening outer door.'\
I am sorry it is snowing so.
THE MELTING-POT 45
VERA
We Russians are used to it.
[^Smiling, ai exii.'\
Good-bye — let us hope your David will turn out a
Rubinstein.
MENDEL
\_C losing the doors softly.'\
I never thought a Russian Christian could be so
human.
\_He looks at the clock.~\
Gott in Himmel — my dancing class !
\He hurries into the overcoat hanging on the hat-rack. Re-
enter David, having composed himself, but still some-
what dazed.~\
DAVID
She is gone .-' Oh, but I have driven her away by
my craziness. Is she very angry ^
MENDEL
Quite the contrary — she expects you at the Con-
cert, and what is more —
DAVID
\_Ecstatically.'\
And she understood ! She understood my Cru-
cible of God ! Oh, uncle, you don't know what it
means to me to have somebody who understands me.
Even you have never understood —
46 THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
[ Wounded. ]
Nonsense ! How can Miss Revendal understand
you better than your own uncle ?
DAVID
\_Mystically exalted.'\
I can't explain — I feel it.
MENDEL
Of course she's interested in your music, thank
Heaven ! But what true understanding can there
be between a Russian Jew and a Russian Christian ?
DAVID
What understanding ? Aren't we both Americans ?
MENDEL
Well, I haven't time to discuss it now.
\_He winds his nwffler round his throat.'\
DAVID
Why, where are you going.?
MENDEL
\_Jronically.'\
Where should I be going — in the snow — on the
eve of the Sabbath 1 Suppose we say to synagogue !
DAVID
Oh, uncle — how you always seem to hanker after
those old things !
THE MELTING-POT 47
MENDEL
[Tartly. '\
Nonsense !
\_He takes his wnbreUa fro7n the stand,']
I don't like to see our people going to pieces, that's
all.
DAVID
Then why did you come to America ? Why didn't
you work for a Jewish land?
MENDEL
I can't argue now. There's a pack of giggling
schoolgirls waiting to waltz.
DAVID
The fresh romping young things ! Think of their
happiness ! I should love to play for them.
MENDEL
[Sarcasticatty.']
I can see you are yourself again.
[ffe opens the street-door — turns back.]
What about your own lesson ? Can't we go to-
gether .''
DAVID
I must first write down what is singing in my soul
— oh, uncle, it seems as if I knew suddenly what was
wanting in my music !
48 THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
Well, don't forget what is wanting in the house !
The rent isn't paid yet.
\_Exit through street-door. As he goes out, he touches and
kisses the Mezuzah on the door-post, with a subcon-
sciously antagonistic revival of i-eligious impulse. David
opens his desk, takes out a pile of musical tnanuscript,
sprawls over his chair and, lunnming to himself, scribbles
feverishly with the quill. After a few moments Frau
QuiXANO yawns, wakes, and stretches herself. Then she
looks at the clock.']
FRAU QUIXANO
SJiabbos I
[_She rises and goes to the fable and sees there are no candles,
walks to the chiffonier and gets them and places them.
in the candlesticks, then lights the candles, muttering a
ceremonial Hebrew benediction.]
BorucJi atto Jiaddoshcm elloJicimi- melech hoolam
assJier kiddisJionii bemitzvosov vettzivonii. lehadlik neir
shel shabbos.
\_She pulls down the blinds of the two windows, then she goes
to the rapt composer and touches him, refnindingly, on
the shoulder. He does not move, but continues writing.]
Dovidel I
\_He looks up dazedly. She points to the candles.]
Shabbos I
\_A sweet smile comes over his face, he throws the quill re-
signedly atuay and submits his head to her hands and
her muttered Hebreiu blessing.]
THE MELTING-POT 49
Yesinicho elohim keefrayim vechimnasseJi — yeiw-
rechecho haddosJiem veyishmerecho, yoer haddoshetn
ponov eilecho vechiniecho, yisso haddosJietn ponov
cilecho veyosem lecJio sliolom.
\_Then she goes toward the kitchen. As she turns at the
door, he is again writing. She shakes her finger at him,
repeating'^
Gut Shabbos !
DAVID
Gut Shabbos !
l^Futs dozvn the pen and smiles after her till the door closes,
then with a deep sigh takes his cape from the peg and
his violin case, pauses, still Jmmming, to take up his
pen and write down a fresh phrase, finally puts on his
hat and is Just about to open the street-door when
Kathleen enters from her bedroom fully dressed to go,
and laden with a large brown paper parcel and an
umbrella. He turns at the sound of her footsteps and
remains at the door, holding his violin case during the
ensuing dialogue ^^
DAVID
You're not going out this bitter weather ?
KATHLEEN
\_Sharply fending him off tvith her umbrella^
And who's to shtay me ?
DAVID
Oh, but you mustn't — /'// do your errand — what
is it ?
E
50 THE MELTING-POT
KATHLEEN
\_Indignantly.'\
Errand, is it, indeed ! I'm not here !
DAVID
Not here ?
KATHLEEN
I'm lavin', they'll come for me thrunk — -and ye'll
witness I don't take the candleshtick !
DAVID
But who's sending you away ?
KATHLEEN
It's sending meself away I am — I can't shtand
your grandmother.
DAVID
But I haven't a grandmother.
KATHLEEN
She's just as bad —
DAVID
But what has the poor old la — }
KATHLEEN
What with salting the mate and mixing the
crockery — !
DAVID
\_Gentfy.']
I know, I know — but, Kathleen, remember she was
brought up to these things from childhood. And her
father was a Rabbi.
THE MELTING-POT 5 1
KATHLEEN
What's that ? A praste ?
DAVID
A sort of praste. In Russia he was a great man.
Her husband, too, was a mighty scholar, and to give
him time to study the holy books she had to do
chores all day for him and the children.
KATHLEEN
Oh, those prastes !
DAVID
\_Smiliug.'\
No, he wasn't a praste. But he took sick and
died and the children left her — went to America or
heaven or other far-off places — and she was left all
penniless and alone.
KATHLEEN
Poor ould lady.
DAVID
Not so old yet, for she was married at fifteen.
KATHLEEN
Poor young chrayter !
DAVID
But she was still the good angel of the congre-
gation — sat up with the sick and watched over the
dead.
52 THE MELTING-POT
KATHLEEN
Saints alive ! And not scared ?
DAVID
No, nothing scared her — except me. I got a
broken-down fiddle and used to play it even on
Shabbos — I was very naughty. But she was so
lovely to me. I still remember the heavenly taste of
a piece of Motso she gave me dipped in raisin wine !
Passover cake, you know.
KATHLEEN
\_Proudly. ]
Oh, / know Motso.
DAVID
\_Smacks his lips, repeats.'^
Heavenly !
KATHLEEN
Sure, I must tashte it.
DAVID
\_Shaking his head, 7/iyste?'iously.'\
Only little boys get that tashte.
KATHLEEN
That's quare.
DAVID
\_Smiling.']
Very quare. And then one day my uncle sent the
old lady a ticket to come to America. But it is not so
THE MELTING-POT 53
happy for her here because you see my uncle has
to be near his theatre and can't live in the Jewish
quarter, and so nobody understands her, and she sits
all the livelong day alone — alone with her book and
her religion and her memories —
KATHLEEN
[^Breaking down.']
Oh, Mr. David !
DAVID
And now all this long, cold, snowy evening she'll
sit by the fire alone, thinking of her dead, and the fire
will sink lower and lower, and she won't be able to
touch it, because it's the holy Sabbath, and there'll
be no kind Kathleen to brighten up the grey ashes,
and then at last, sad and shivering, she'll creep up to
her room without a candlestick, and there in the dark
and the cold —
KATHLEEN
\^Hysterically bursting into tears, dropping her parcel, and
ujitying her bonnet strings.'\
Oh, Mr. David, I won't mix the crockery, I won't —
DAVID
\_Heai-tily.~\
Of course you won't. Good night.
\_He slips out hurriedly through the street-door as Kath-
leen throws off her bonnet, and the curtain falls qiiickly.
As it rises again, she is seen strenuously poking the fire,
illumined by its red glow.']
ACT II
\_The same scene 071 an afternoon a month later. David is
discovered at his desk, scribbling music in a fever of en-
thtisiasm. Mendel, dressed in his best, is playing softly
on the piano, watching David. After an instant or tivo
of indecision, he puts down the piano-lid with a bang and
rises decisively?^
MENDEL
David !
DAVID
[Putting up his left hand^
Please, please —
\_He writes feverishly^
MENDEL
But I want to talk to you seriously — at once.
DAVID
I'm just re-writing the Finale. Oh, such a splendid
inspiration !
[He writes on.]
MENDEL
[Shn/gs his shoulders and reseats himself at piano. He plays
a bar or two. Looks at watch impatiently. Resolutely.']
David, I've got wonderful news for you. Miss
Revendal is bringing somebody to see you, and we
54
THE MELTING-POT 55
have hopes of getting you sent to Germany to study
composition.
[David does jiot reply, bjit writes rapidly on.^
Why, he hasn't heard a word !
{_JIe shouts.']
David!
DAVID
[ Writijig on.~\
I can't, uncle. I miistT^wt it down while that glori-
ous impression is fresh.
MENDEL
What impression } You only went to the People's
Alliance.
DAVID
Yes, and there I saw the Jewish children — a thou-
ing the Flag.
\_He writes on.']
sand of 'em — saluting the Flag.
MENDEL
Well, what of that ?
DAVID
What of that ?
\He throws down his quill and jumps up.]
But just fancy it, uncle. The Stars and Stripes
unfurled, and a thousand childish voices, piping and
foreign, fresh from the lands of oppression, hailing
its fluttering folds. I cried like a baby.
56 THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
I'm afraid you are one.
DAVID
Ah, but if you had heard them — " Flag of our
Great Repubhc " — the words have gone singing at
my heart ever since —
\_He turns to the flag ove7' the door.'\
" Flag of our Great Republic, guardian of our
homes, whose stars and stripes stand for Bravery,
Purity, Truth, and Union, we salute thee. We, the
natives of distant lands, who find
\_Half-sobbing. ]
rest under thy folds, do pledge our hearts, our lives, our
sacred honour to love and protect thee, our Country,
and the liberty of the American people for ever."
\_He ends almost ]iyste7'ically.'\
MENDEL
\_Soothingly . ]
Quite right. But you needn't get so excited over it.
DAVID
Not when one hears the roaring of the fires of God ?
Not when one sees the souls melting in the Crucible ?
Uncle, all those little Jews will grow up Americans !
MENDEL
\Putti7ig a pacifying hand on his shoulder and forcing hint
into a chair."]
Sit down. I want to talk to you about your affairs.
THE MELTING-POT 57
DAVID
\Sittingr\
My affairs ! But I've been talking about them all
the time !
MENDEL
Nonsense, David.
\He sits beside him.']
Don't you think it's time you got into a wider
world ?
DAVID
Eh ? This planet's wide enough for me.
MENDEL
Do be serious. You don't want to live all your life
in this room.
DAVID
\_Looks round.~\
What's the matter with this room } It's princely.
MENDEL
\_Raising his hands in horror.]
Princely !
DAVID
Imperial. Remember when I first saw it — after
pigging a week in the rocking steerage, swinging in
a berth as wide as my fiddle case, hung near the cook-
ing engines ; imagine the hot rancid smell of the
food, the oil of the machinery, the odours of all that
close-packed, sea-sick —
58 THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
\_Putting his hand 07)er David's mouth.']
Don't! You make me ill! How could you ever
bear it ?
DAVID
\_Smilmg.'\
I was quite happy — I only had to fancy I'd been
shipwrecked, and that after clinging to a plank five
days without food or water on the great lonely Atlan-
tic, my frozen, sodden form had been picked up by
this great safe steamer and given this delightful dry
berth, regular meals, and the spectacle of all these
friendly faces. . . . Do you know who was on board
that boat ? Quincy Davenport.
MENDEL
The lord of corn and oil ?
DAVID
\_Smiling.'\
Yes, even we wretches in the steerage felt safe to
think the lord was up above, and the company
would never dare drown hiui. But could even Quincy
Davenport command a cabin like this ?
[ Waving his arm round the ?'ooin.~\
Why, uncle, we have a cabin worth a thousand
dollars — a thousand dollars a zveek — and what's
more, it doesn't wobble !
\He plants his feet voluptuously upoi tJie floor.]
THE MELTING-POT 59
MENDEL
Come, come, David, I asked you to be serious.
Surely, some day you'd like your music produced ?
DAVID
\Jumps tip.~\
Wouldn't it be glorious ? To hear it all actually
coming out of violins and 'cellos, drums and trumpets.
MENDEL
And you'd like it to go all over the world ?
DAVID
All over the world and all down the ages.
MENDEL
But don't you see that unless you go and study
seriously in Germany — }
\_Enter Kathleen from kitchen, carrying a furnished tea-
tray with ear-shaped cakes, bread and butter, etc., and
wearing a grotesque false nose. Mendel cries out in
amaze~\
Kathleen !
DAVID
\_Roaring with boyish laughter^
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
KATHLEEN
\_Standing still with her tray.']
Sure, phwat's the matter }
6o THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
Look in the glass !
KATHLEEN
[Going to the mantel.'\
Houly Moses !
\She drops the tray, which Mendel catches, and snatches off
the nose.~\
Sure, I forgot to take it off — 'twas the misthress
gave it me — I put it on to cheer her up.
DAVID
Is she so miserable, then ?
KATHLEEN
Terrible low, Mr, David, to-day being Puriin.
MENDEL
Purini ! Is to-day Purim ?
[Gives her the tea-tray back. Kathleen, to take it, drops
her nose aJid forgets //.]
DAVID
But Pu7'im is a merry time, Kathleen, like your
Carnival. Haven't you read the book of Esther —
how the Jews of Persia escaped massacre .■*
KATHLEEN
That's what the misthress is so miserable about.
Ye don't keep the Carnival. There's noses for both
of ye in the kitchen — I went with her to Hester
Street to buy 'em — but ye don't ax after 'em. And
to see your noses laying around so solemn and neg-
lected, faith, it nearly makes me chry meself.
THE MELTING-POT 6 1
MENDEL
[Bitterly to himself.'\
Who can remember about Piiriiii in America ?
DAVID
\^IIaIf-smiHng.'\
Poor auntie, tell her to come in and I'll play her a
Ptirini jig.
MENDEL
\_Hastily.~\
No, no, David, not here — the visitors!
DAVID
Visitors ? What visitors ?
MENDEL
\_Impatiently.'\
That's just what I've been trying to explain.
DAVID
Well, I can play in the kitchen.
[He takes his violin. Exit to kitchen. Mendel sighs and
shrugs his shoulders hopelessly at the boy's pei'versity,
then fingers the cups and saucers.~\
MENDEL
\_Anxiotisly.'\
Is that the best tea-set ?
62 THE MELTING-POT
KATHLEEN
Sure, it's the Passover set !
\_R2cefiilly:\
It'll be shpiled entirely now for Passover. . . .
And the misthress thought the visitors might like to
thry some of her Ptivim cakes.
\Indicates ear-shaped cakes on trayJ\
MENDEL
{^Bitterly ?^
Purim cakes !
\He turns his back on her and stares moodily out of the
window^
KATHLEEN
\_Mutters contemptuously 7\
Call yerself a Jew and forgit to keep Purim !
\She is going back to the kitcheri when a merry Slavic dance
breaks out, softened by the door; her feet unconsciously
get more and fnore into dance step, and at last she Jigs
out. As she opens and passes through the door, the
music sounds louder.~\
FRAU QUIXANO
\_Heard from kitchen. "^
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Kathleen!!
[Mendel's /^^/, too, begin to take the swing of the music, and
his feet dance as he stares out of the window. Sud-
denly the hoot of an automobile is heard, followed by the
rattling up of the car."]
THE MELTING-POT 63
MENDEL
Ah, she has brought somebody swell !
\_He throws open the doors and goes out eagerly to meet the
visitors. The dance music goes on softly throughout the
scene.]
QUINCY DAVENPORT
[^ Outside.^
Oh, thank you — I leave the coats in the car.
[_Enter an instant later QumcY Davenport and Vera Reven-
DAL, Mendel in the rear. Vera is dressed much as
before, but with a motor veil, which she takes off dur-
ing the scene. Davenport is a dude, aping the air
of a European sporting clubman. Aged about thirty-five
and well set-up, he wears an orchid and an intertnittent
eyeglass, and gives the impi^ession of a coarse-fibred a7id
patronisingly facetious but not bad-hearted inan, spoiled
by prosperity. '\
MENDEL
Won't you be seated ?
VERA
First let me introduce my friend, who is good
enough to interest himself in your nephew — Mr.
Quincy Davenport.
MENDEL
\_Struck of a heap.]
Mr. Quincy Davenport ! How strange !
VERA
What is strange .-'
64 THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
David just mentioned Mr. Davenport's name —
said they travelled to New York on the same boat.
QUINCY
Impossible ! Always travel on my own yacht.
Slow but select. Must have been another man of
the same name — my dad. Ha! Ha! Ha!
MENDEL
Ah, of course. I thought you were too young.
QUINCY
My dad, Miss Revendal, is one of those antiquated
Americans who are always in a hurry !
VERA
He burns coal and you burn time.
QUINCY
Precisely! Ha! Ha! Ha!
MENDEL
Won't you sit down — I'll go and prepare David.
VERA
\Sitting?[
You've not prepared him yet .<*
THE MELTING-POT 65
MENDEL
I've tried to more than once — but I never really
got to —
\He smUes.~\
to Germany.
[QuiNCY sits.'\
VERA
Then prepare him for three visitors.
MENDEL
Three .''
VERA
You see Mr. Davenport himself is no judge of
music.
QUINCY
\_Jumps upj]
I beg your pardon.
VERA
In manuscript.
QUINCY
. Ah, of course not. Music should be heard, not
seen — like that jolly jig. Is that your David ?
MENDEL
Oh, you mustn't judge him by that. He's just
fooling.
QUINCY
Oh, he'd better not fool with Poppy. He's awful
severe.
^ THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
Poppy ?
QUINCY
Pappelmeister — my private orchestra conductor.
MENDEL
Is it j/<??/r orchestra Pappelmeister conducts?
QUINCY
Well, / pay the piper — and the drummer too!
\_He chuckles^
MENDEL
\Sadly?[
I wanted to play in it, but he turned me down.
QUINCY
I told you he was awful severe.
[r^ Vera.]
He only allows me comic opera once a week. My
wife calls him the Bismarck of the baton.
MENDEL
\_Reverently.'\
A great conductor !
QUINCY
Would he have a twenty -thousand-dollar job with
me if he wasn't ? Not that he'd get half that in the
THE MELTING-POT 67
open market — only I have to stick it on to keep him
for my guests exclusively.
[_Looks at ■watch.'\
But he ought to be here, confound him, A con-
ductor should keep time, eh, Miss Revendal ?
\He sniggers.']
MENDEL
I'll bring David. Won't you help yourselves to
tea?
\_To Vera.]
You see there's lemon for 3^ou — as in Russia.
\^Exit to kitchen — a mometit afterwards the merry music
stops in the middle of a bar.]
VERA
Thank you.
\Taki71g a cup.]
"Dq you like lemon, Mr. Davenport.''
QUINCY
\_Flirta tioiisly. ]
That depends. The last I had was in Russia itself
— from the fair hands of your mother, the Baroness.
VERA
\_Pained.]
Please don't say my mother, my mother is dead.
68 THE MELTING-POT
QUINCY
\Fatuously misunderstandingT^
Oh, you have no call to be ashamed of your step-
mother — she's a stunning creature ; all the points of
a tip-top Russian aristocrat, or Quincy Davenport's no
judge of breed ! Doesn't speak English like your
father — but then the Baron is a wonder.
VERA
[^Takes up tea-poi.'\
Father once hoped to be British Ambassador —
that's why / had an English governess. But you
never told me you met him in Russia.
QUINCY
Surely ! When I gave you all those love mes-
sages —
VERA
\Pouring tea quickly. '\
You said you met him at Wiesbaden.
QUINCY
Yes, but we grew such pals I motored him and the
Baroness back to St. Petersburg. Jolly country, Rus-
sia — they know how to live.
VERA
I saw more of those who know how to die. . . .
Milk and sugar .■'
THE MELTING-POT 69
QUINCY
[ SetUitnenfaUy^
Oh, Miss Revendal ! Have you forgotten ?
VERA
'\_Politely S7iiibbing.~\
How should I remember ?
QUINCY
You don't remember our first meeting ? At the
Settlement Bazaar ? When I paid you a hundred
dollars for every piece of sugar you put in ?
VERA
Did you ? Then I hope you drank syrup.
QUINCY
Ugh ! I hate sugar — I sacrificed myself.
VERA
To the Settlement .'' How heroic of you !
QUINCY
No, not to the Settlement. To you !
VERA
Then I'll only put milk in.
QUINCY
I hate milk. But from you —
70 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
Then we imtst fall back on the lemon.
QUINCY
I loathe lemon. But from —
VERA
Then you shall have your tea neat.
QUINCY
I detest tea, and here it would be particularly cheap
and nasty. But —
VERA
Then you shall have a cake !
\_She offers plateJ^
QUINCY
[ Taking one.']
Would they be eatable ?
\_Tasting //.]
Humph ! Not bad.
^^Sentimentally.']
A little cake was all you would eat the only time
you came to one of my private concerts. Don't you
remember ? We went down to supper together.
VERA
\Taking his tea for he?'self aiid putting in lemon.']
I shall always remember the delicious music Herr
Pappelmeister gave us.
THE MELTING-POT Ji
QUINCY
How unkind of you !
VERA
Unkind ?
\_She sips the tea and puts down the a/p.']
To be grateful for the music ?
QUINCY
You know what I mean — to forget me !
\_He tries to take her hand.']
VERA
{^Rising.]
Aren't you forgetting yourself ?
QUINCY
You mean because I'm married to that patched-and-
painted creature ? She's hankering for the stage
again, the old witch.
VERA
Hush ! Marriages with comic opera stars are not
usually domestic idylls.
QUINCY
I fell a victim to my love of music.
VERA
\_Murmurs, sinilingl\
Music !
72 THE MELTING-POT
QUINCY
And I hadn't yet met the right breed — the true
blue blood of Europe. I'll get a divorce.
\_Approaching her.'\
Vera!
VERA
\_Retreating.'\
You will make me sorry I came to you.
QUINCY
No, don't say that — I promised the Baron I'd
always do all I could for —
VERA
You promised } You dared discuss my affairs }
QUINCY
It was your father began it. When he found I
knew you, he almost wept with emotion. He asked
a hundred questions about your life in America.
VERA
His life and mine are for ever separate. He is a
Reactionary, I a Radical.
QUINCY
But he loves you dreadfully — he can't understand
why you should go slaving away summer and winter
in a Settlement — you a member of the Russian
nobility !
THE MELTING-POT 73
VERA
[ With faint smile.']
I might say, noblesse oblige. But the truth is, I
earn my living that way. It would do yojt good to
slave there too !
QUINCY
{Eagerly?^
Would they chain us together ? I'd come to-
morrow.
\_He moves nearer her. There is a double knock at the door.]
VERA
\Relieiied.]
Here's Pappelmeister !
QUINCY
Bother Poppy — why is he so darned punctual r
\_Enter Kathleen /;-<?;« the kitchen.]
VERA
\_S'mHing.]
Ah, you're still here.
KATHLEEN
And why would I not be here ?
\She goes to open the door.]
PAPPELMEISTER
Mr. Quixano .''
74 THE MELTING-POT
KATHLEEN
Yes, come in.
\_Enter Herr Pappelmeister, a biirly German figure with
a leonine head, spectacles, and a ?nane of white hair
— a figure that makes his employer look eveji coarser.
He carries an umbrella, which he never lets go. He is
at first grave and silent, which makes any burst of emotion
the more striking. He and Quincy Davenport suggest
a picture of "Dignity and Impudence." His English, as
roughly indicated in the text, is extremely Teutonic. '\
QUINCY
You're late, Poppy !
[Pappelmeister silently bows to Vera.]
VERA
[^Smilingly goes and offej's her hand.'\
Proud to meet you, Herr Pappelmeister !
QUINCY
Excuse me —
^Introducing^
Miss Revendal ! — I forgot you and Poppy hadn't
been introduced — curiously enough it was at Wiesba-
den I picked him up too, — he was conducting the
opera — your folks were in my box. I don't think
I ever met any one so mad on music as the Baron.
And the Baroness told me he had retired from active
service in the Army because of the torture of listening
to the average military band. Ha ! Ha ! Ha !
THE MELTING-POT 75
VERA
Yes, my father once hoped my music would com-
fort him.
\_She smiles sadly.~\
Poor father ! But a soldier must bear defeat.
Herr Pappelmeister, may I not give you some tea ?
\^She sits again at the table. ~\
QUINCY
Tea ! Lager's more in Poppy's line.
\_He chuckles. '\
PAPPELMEISTER
[ Gravely.'\
Bitte. Tea.
\She pours out, he sits.'\
Lemon. Four lumps. . . . Nun, five !
\She hands him the cup.~\
Danke.
\_As he receives the cup, he titters an exclamation, for Kath-
leen after opening the door has lingered on, hunting
around everywhere, and having finally crawled under the
table has now brushed against his leg.']
VERA
What are you looking for ?
KATHLEEN
[^ffer head emej'-ging.']
My nose !
\_They are all startled and amused.']
76 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
Your nose ?
KATHLEEN
I forgot me nose !
QUINCY
Well, follow your nose — and you'll find it. Ha!
Ha! Ha!
KATHLEEN
[Pouncing on //.]
Here it is !
\_Ficks it up 7iear the ar77ichair.']
OMNES
Oh!
KATHLEEN
Sure, it's gotten all dirthy.
\_She takes out a handkerchief and wipes the 7iose carefully. '\
QUINCY
But why do you want a nose like that ?
KATHLEEN
\Proudly^
Bekaz we're Hebrews I
QUINCY
What!
VERA
What do you mean ?
THE MELT/NG-POT yy
KATHLEEN
It's our Carnival to-day ! Purim.
\_She carries her nose carefidly and piously toward the
kite hen. '\
VERA
Oh ! I see.
\_Exit Kathleen.
QUINCY
\_In horror?^
Miss Revendal, you don't mean to say you've
brought me to a Jew !
VERA
I'm afraid I have. I was thinking only of his
genius, not his race. And you see, so many musi-
cians are Jews.
QUINCY
Not my musicians. No Jew's harp in my orches-
tra, eh }
\_He s?iiggers.']
I wouldn't have a Jew if he paid me.
VERA
I daresay you have some, all the same.
QUINCY
Impossible. Poppy ! Are there any Jews in my
orchestra .-'
yS THE MELTING-POT
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Removing the cup from his mouth and speaking with sepul-
chral solemnity. '\
Do you mean are dere any Christians ?
QUINCY
[/« horror.']
Gee-rusalem ! Perhaps you're a Jew !
PAPPELMEISTER
[ Gravely.]
I haf not de honour. But, if you brefer, I will
gut out from my brogrammes all de Chewish com-
posers. Was ?
QUINCY
Why, of course. Fire 'em out, every mother's son
of 'em.
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Uns?Hiling.]
Also — no more comic operas !
QUINCY
What ! ! ! •
PAPPELMEISTER
Dey write all de comic operas !
QUINCY
Brute !
[Pappelmeister's chuckle is heard gurgling in his cup. Re-
enter Mendel from kitchen.]
THE MELTING-POT 79
MENDEL
[Ti? Vera.]
I'm so sorry — I can't get him to come in — he's
terrible shy.
QUINCY
Won't face the music, eh ?
\He sniggers. '\
VERA
Did you tell him / was here ?
MENDEL
Of course.
VERA
{Disappointed.']
Oh!
MENDEL
But I've persuaded him to let me show his Ms.
VERA
[ With forced satisfaction.]
Oh, well, that's all we want.
[Mendel goes to the desk, opens it, and gets the Ms. and
offers it to Quincy Davenport.]
QUINCY
Not for me — Poppy !
[Mendel offers it to Pappelmeister, 7vho takes it solemnly.]
MENDEL
{Anxiously to Pappelmeister.]
Of course you must remember his youth and his
lack of musical education —
8o THE MELTING-POT
PAPPELMEISTER
Bitte, das Pult !
[Mendel moves David's music-stand fy-om the corner to the
centre of the room. Pappelmeister /^/j Ms. on it.']
So!
\_Atl eyes centre on him eagerly, Mendel standing uneasily,
the others sitting. Pappelmeister polishes his glasses
with irritatitig elaborateness and weary '^ achs,^^ then
reads in absolute silence. A pcCuse.]
QUINCY
[^Bored by the silence^
But won't you play it to us ?
PAPPELMEISTER
Blay it ? Am I an orchestra ? I blay it in my
brain.
S^He goes on reading, his broiv gets wrinkled. He ruffles
his hair unconsciously. All watch him anxiously
— he turns the page.]
So!
VERA
{Anxiously?^
You don't seem to like it !
PAPPELMEISTER
I do not comprehend it.
MENDEL
I knew it was crazy — it is supposed to be about
America or a Crucible or something. And of course
there are heaps of mistakes.
THE MELTING-POT 8 1
VERA
That is why I am suggesting to Mr. Davenport to
send him to Germany.
QUINCY
I'll send as many Jews as you like to Germany.
Ha! Ha! Ha!
PAPPELMEISTER
\Absorbed, turning pages ^
Ach! — ach! — So!
QUINCY
I'd even lend my own yacht to take 'em back.
Ha! Ha! Ha!
VERA
Sh ! We're disturbing Herr Pappelmeister.
QUINCY
Oh, Poppy's all right.
PAPPELMEISTER
\Sublimely unconsciousi\
Ach so — so — SO ! Das ist etwas neices !
\His uinbrella begins to beat time, nioinng more and itiore
vigorously, till at last he is conducting elaborately,
stretching out his left palm for pianissimo passages, and
raising it vigorously forforte, with every now and then
an exclatnation^
WunderscJion I . . . pianissimo ! — now the flutes!
Clarinets ! Ach ergotzlich . . . bassoons and drums !
. . . Fortissimo I . . . Colossal ! Colossal !
\Coiiducting in a fury of enthusiasm?^
G
82 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
Bravo ! Bravo ! I'm so excited !
QUINCY
[ Yawning.'\
Then it isn't bad, Poppy ?
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Not listening, never ceasing to conduct^]
Und de harp solo . . . ac/i, reizvoll ! . . . Second
violins — !
QUINCY
But Poppy ! We can't be here all day.
PAPPELMEISTER
\^Not listening, continuing pantomime action.~\
Sh! Sh! Piano.
QUINCY
[ Outraged^
Sh to me !
\_Rises^
VERA
He doesn't know it's you,
QUINCY
But look here, Poppy —
\He seizes the wildly- moving umbrella. Blank stare of
PAPPELMEISTER gradually returning to consciousness.']
THE MELTING-POT 83
PAPPEr.MEISTER
Was ist . . . f
QUINCY
We've had enough.
PAPPELMEISTER
\^Indigfiant.~\
Enough ? Enough ? Of such a beaudiful sym-
phony ?
QUINCY
It may be beautiful to you, but to us it's damn dull.
See here, Poppy, if you're satisfied that the young
fellow has sufficient talent to be sent to study in Ger-
many —
PAPPELMEISTER
In Germany ! Germany has nodings to teach him,
he has to teach Germany.
VERA
Bravo !
\_She springs i!p.'\
MENDEL
I always said he was a genius !
QUINCY
Well, at that rate you could put this stuff of bis
in one of my programmes. Sinfonia Americana, eh ?
VERA
Oh, that is good of you !
PAPPELMEISTER
I should be broud to indroduce it to de vorld.
84 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
And will it be played in that wonderful marble
music-room overlooking the Hudson ?
QUINCY
Sure. Before five hundred of the smartest folk in
America.
MENDEL
Oh, thank you, thank you. That will mean fame !
QUINCY
And dollars. Don't forget the dollars.
MENDEL
I'll run and tell him.
\He hastens into the kitchen, Pappelmeister is re-absorhed
in the Ms., but no longer conducting.']
QUINCY
You see, I'll help even a Jew for your sake.
VERA
Hush !
\_Indicating Pappelmeister.]
QUINCY
Oh, Poppy's in the moon.
VERA
You must help him for his own sake.
QUINCY
And why not for my sake .-'
\_He comes nearer.']
THE MELTING-POT 85
VERA
\_Crossiiig to Pappelmeister.]
Herr Pappelmeister ! When do you think you can
produce it ?
PAPPELMEISTER
Wunderbar ! . . .
[Becoming half-cojiscious of Vera.]
Four lumps. . . .
\_Waking up.']
Bitte f
VERA
How soon can you produce it ?
PAPPELMEISTER
How soon can he finish it ?
VERA
Isn't it finished ?
PAPPELMEISTER
I see von Finale scratched out and anoder not
quite completed. But anyhow, ve couldn't broduce
it before Saturday fortnight.
QUINCY
Saturday fortnight ! Not time to get my crowd.
PAPPELMEISTER
Den ve say Saturday dree veeks. Yes }
86 THE MELTING-POT
QUINCY
Yes. Stop a minute ! Did you say Saturday ?
That's my comic opera night ! You thief !
PAPPELMEISTER
Somedings must be sagrificed.
MENDEL
[ Outside^
You vinst come, David.
\The kitchen door opens, and Mei^del drags in the boyishly
shnnking David. Pappelmeister thumps with his um-
brella, Vera claps her hands, Quincy Davenport pro-
duces his eyeglass and surveys David curiously^
VERA
Oh, Mr. Quixano, I am so glad! Mr. Davenport
is going to produce your symphony in his wonderful
music-room.
QUINCY
Yes, young man, I'm going to give you the smart-
est audience in America. And if Poppy is right,
you're just going to rake in the dollars. America
wants a composer.
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Raises hands emphatically^
Ach Gott, ja I
VERA
{To David.]
Why don't you speak 1 You're not angry with me
for interfering — .''
THE MELTING-POT 87
DAVID
I can never be grateful enough to you —
VERA
Oh, not to me. It is to Mr. Davenport you —
DAVID
And I can never be grateful enough to Herr Pap-
pelmeister. It is an honour even to meet him.
\Bows.'\
PAPPELMEISTER
[ Choking with emotion, goes and pats him on the back.'\
Mein braver Jtinge !
VERA
\_Anxiously^
But it is Mr, Davenport —
DAVID
Before I accept Mr. Davenport's kindness, I must
know to whom I am indebted — and if Mr. Daven-
port is the man who —
QUINCY
Who travelled with you to New York } Ha ! Ha !
Ha ! No, Fm only the junior.
DAVID
Oh, I know, sir, you don't make the money you
spend.
8S THE MELTING-POT
QUINCY
Eh?
VERA
\_Anxiously^
He means he knows you're not in business.
DAVID
Yes, sir; but is it true you are in pleasure?
QUINCY
\Puzzled^
I beg your pardon ?
DAVID
Are all the stories the papers print about you
true ?
QUINCY
All the stories. That's a tall order. Ha ! Ha !
Ha!
DAVID
Well, anyhow, is it true that — ?
VERA
Mr. Quixano ! What are you driving at ?
QUINCY
Oh, it's rather fun to hear what the masses read
about me. Fire ahead. Is what true ?
DAVID
That you were married in a balloon ?
THE MELTING-POT 89
QUINCY
Ho! Ha! Ha! That's true enough. Marriage
in high life, they said, didn't they ? Ha ! Ha !
Ha!
DAVID
And is it true you Hve in America only two
months in the year, and then only to entertain Eu-
ropeans who wander to these wild parts ?
QUINCY
Lucky for you, young man. You'll have an Ital-
ian prince and a British duke to hear your scrib-
blings.
DAVID
And the palace where they will hear my scribbhngs
— is it true that — .-"
VERA
[ Who has been on pins mid needles^
Mr. Quixano, what possible — .'*
DAVID
\_Entreatingly holds up a hand.~\
Miss Revendal !
\_^To QuiNCY Davenport.]
Is this palace the same whose grounds were turned
into Venetian canals where the guests ate in gon-
dolas— gondolas that were draped with the most
wonderful trailing silks in imitation of the Venetian
nobility in the great water fetes 1
90 THE MELTING-POT
QUINCY
\_Turns to Vera.]
Ah, Miss Revendal — what a pity you refused that
invitation ! It was a fairy scene of twinkling lights
and delicious darkness — each couple had their own
gondola to sup in, and their own side-canal to slip
down. Eh.? Ha! Ha! Ha!
DAVID
And tlie same night, women and children died of
hunger in New York !
QUINCY
\_StartJed, drops eyeglass.'\
Eh.?
DAVID
[Furiously.']
And this is the sort of people you would invite to
hear my symphony — these gondola-guzzlers I
VERA
Mr. Quixano !
MENDEL
David !
DAVID
These magnificent animals who went into the gon-
dolas two by two, to feed and flirt !
QUINCY
\_Dazed.'\
Sir!
THE MELTING-POT 91
DAVID
I should be a new freak for you for a new freak
evening — I and my dreams and my music !
QUINCY
You low-down, ungrateful —
DAVID
Not for you and such as you have I sat here writ-
ing and dreaming; not for you who are killing my
America !
QUINCY
Your America, forsooth, you Jew-immigrant !
VERA
Mr. Davenport!
DAVID
Yes — Jew-immigrant ! But a Jew who knows that
your Pilgrim Fathers came straight out of his Old
Testament, and that our Jew-immigrants are a greater
factor in the glory of this great commonwealth than
some of you sons of the soil. It is you, freak-fash-
ionables, who are undoing the work of Washington
and Lincoln, vulgarising your high heritage, and turn-
ing the last and noblest hope of humanity into a
caricature.
QUINCY
\_Rocking with laughter^
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ho I Ho ! Ho !
\^To Vera.]
You never told me your Jew-scribbler was a socialist !
92 THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
I am nothing but a simple artist, but I come from
Europe, one of her victims, and I know that she is a
failure ; that her palaces and peerages are outworn
toys of the human spirit, and that the only hope of
mankind lies in a new world. And here — in the
land of to-morrow — you are trying to bring back
Europe —
QUINCY
\Interjecting.'\
I wish we could ! —
DAVID
Europe with her comic-opera coronets and her
worm-eaten stage decorations, and her pomp and chiv-
alry built on a morass of crime and misery —
QUINCY
[ With sneering laughJ]
Morass ! —
DAVID
[ With prophetic passion."]
But you shall not kill my dream ! There shall
come a fire round the Crucible that will melt you and
your breed like wax in a blowpipe —
QUINCY
\_Furiously, with clenched fist.]
You —
DAVID
America shall make good . , . !
THE MELTING-POT 93
PAPPELMEISTER
[ Who has sat down and remained imperturbably seated
throughout all this scene, springs up and waves his
umbrella hysterically. ~\
Hock Quixano I Hock ! Hock ! Es lebe Qtiixano !
Hock !
QUINCY
Poppy ! You're dismissed !
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Goes to David with outstretched hand. '\
Danke.
l^They grip hands. Pappelmeister /?/r«^ to Quincy Daven-
port.]
Comic Opera ! Ouf !
QUINCY
\_Goes to street-door, at white heat']
Are you coming, Miss Revendal ?
\_He opens the door.^
VERA
[^To QuiNCY, but not moving.^
Pray, pray, accept my apologies — believe me, if I
had known —
QUINCY
[^J^uriously.']
Then stop with your Jew !
[_£xit.']
94 THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
\Franiically^
But, Mr. Davenport, — don't go ! He is only a boy.
\_Exit after Quincy Davenport.]
You must consider —
DAVID
Oh, Herr Pappelmeister, you have lost your place !
PAPPELMEISTER
And saved my soul. Dollars are de devil. Now I
must to an appointment. Auf baldiges Wiedersehen.
\^He shakes David's hand.'\
Fraulein Revendal!
[He takes her hand and kisses it. Exit. David and Vera
stand gazing at each other. "]
VERA
What have you done .-' What have you done ?
DAVID
What else could I do ?
VERA
I hate the smart set as much as you — but as your
ladder and your trumpet —
DAVID
I would not stand indebted to them. I know you
meant it for my good, but what would these Europe-
THE MELTING-POT 95
apers have understood of my America — the Amer-
ica of my music? They look back on Europe as
a pleasure ground, a palace of art — but I know
[ Getting hysterical^
it is sodden with blood, red with bestial massacres —
VERA
\_Alarmed, anxious. '\
Let us talk no more about it.
\_She holds out htr hand."]
Good-bye.
DAVID
\_Frozen, taking it, holding /A]
Ah, you are offended by my ingratitude — I shall
never see you again.
VERA
No, I am not offended. But I have failed to help
you. We have nothing else to meet for.
\_She disengages her hand^
DAVID
Why will you punish me so.? I have only hurt
myself.
VERA
It is not z. pimisJmient.
DAVID
What else .-' When you are with me, all the air
seems to tremble with fairy music played by some
unseen fairy orchestra.
96 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
\Tremulous^
And yet you wouldn't come in just now when I —
DAVID
I was too frightened of the others . . .
VERA
Frightened indeed !
DAVID
Yes, I know I became overbold — but to take all
that magic sweetness out of my life for ever — you
don't call that a punishment ?
VERA
\_Blushing.'\
How could I wish to punish you? I was proud
of you !
\_Drops her eyes, murmurs^
Besides it would be punishing myself.
DAVID
' \^In passionate amaze. '^
Miss Revendal! . . . But no, it cannot be. It
is too impossible.
VERA
\Frightened.'\
Yes, too impossible. Good-bye.
\_She turns^
THE MELTING-POT 97
DAVID
But not for always ?
[Y'E'RA hangs her head. He comes nearer. Passionately. ~\
Promise me that you — that I —
\_IIe takes her hand again.']
VERA
\_Meliing at his touch, breathes.]
Yes, yes, David.
DAVID
Miss Revendal !
[She fails into his arms.]
VERA
My dear ! my dear !
DAVID
It is a dream. You cannot care for me — you so
far above me.
VERA
Above you, you simple boy } Your genius lifts you
to the stars.
DAVID
No, no ; it is you who lift me there —
VERA
[Smoothing his hair.]
Oh, David. And to think that I was brought up to
despise your race.
98 THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
Yes, all Russians are.
VERA
But we of the nobility in particular.
DAVID
\_Amazed, half- releasing herJ]
You are noble ?
VERA
My father is Baron Revendal, but I have long
since carved out a life of my own.
DAVID
Then he will not separate us }
VERA
No.
\_Re-embracing him.']
Nothing can separate us.
\_A knock at the street-door. They separate. The automo-
bile is heard clattering off.]
DAVID
It is my uncle coming back.
VERA
\_In low, tense tones."]
Then I shall slip out. I could not bear a third. I
will write.
l^She goes to the door.]
THE MELTING-POT 99
DAVID
Yes, yes . . . Vera.
\_He follows her to the door. He opens it and she slips out.']
MENDEL
[^Half-seen at the door, expostulating?^
You, too. Miss Revendal — ?
\_Re-enters?
Oh, David, you have driven away all your friends.
DAVID
\_Going to window and looking after Vera.]
Not all, uncle. Not all.
\^He throws his arms boyishly round his uncle.]
I am so happy.
MENDEL
Happy .''
DAVID
She loves me — Vera loves me.
MENDEL
Vera .?
DAVID
Miss Revendal.
MENDEL
Have you lost your wits ?
\He throws David off.]
DAVID
I don't wonder you're amazed. Maybe you think
/ wasn't. It is as if an angel should stoop down —
lOO THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
\_IIoarsely ^
This is true ? This is not some stupid Piirim
joke ?
DAVID
True and sacred as the sunrise.
MENDEL
But you are a Jew !
DAVID
Yes, and just think ! She was bred up to despise
Jews — her father was a Russian baron —
MENDEL
If she was the daughter of fifty barons, you can-
not marry her.
DAVID
\_In pained aniaze.'\
Uncle !
\^Slowly.'\
Then your hankering after the synagogue was
serious after all.
MENDEL
It is not so much the synagogue — it is the call of
our blood through immemorial generations.
DAVID
Yoti say that ! You who have come to the heart
of the Crucible, where the roaring fires of God are
fusing our race with all the others.
THE MELTING-POT lOI
MENDEL
\_Passionately.'\
Not our race, not your race and mine.
DAVID
What immunity has our race ?
\^Meditatively^
The pride and the prejudice, the dreams and the
sacrifices, the traditions and the superstitions, the
fasts and the feasts, things noble and things sordid
— they must all into the Crucible.
MENDEL
[ With prophetic fury. '\
The Jew has been tried in a thousand fires and
only tempered and annealed.
DAVID
Fires of hate, not fires of love. That is what
melts.
MENDEL
\Sneers?^
So I see.
DAVID
Your sneer is false. The love that melted me
was not Vera's — it was the love America showed
me — the day she gathered me to her breast.
MENDEL
\Speaking passionately and rapidly. '\
Many countries have gathered us. Holland took
us when we were driven from Spain — but we did
102 THE MELTING-POT
not become Dutchmen. Turkey took us when Ger-
many oppressed us, but we have not become Turks.
DAVID
These countries were not in the making. They
were old civilisations stamped with the seal of creed.
Here in this new secular Republic we must look
forward —
MENDEL
\_Passionately interrupting.l
We must look backwards, too.
DAVID
[^Hysterically.']
To what } To Kishineff .-'
\_As if seeing his vision.^
To that butcher's face directing the slaughter?
To those — ?
MENDEL
\_Alarmed.'\
Hush ! Calm yourself !
DAVID
[Struggling with himself.']
Yes, I will calm myself — but how else shall I
calm myself save by forgetting all that nightmare of
religions and races, save by holding out my hands
with prayer and music toward the Republic of Man
and the Kingdom of God ! The Past I cannot mend
THE MELTING-POT 103
— its evil outlines are stamped in immortal rigidity.
Take away the hope that I can mend the Future, and
you make me mad. ~~ ~ "
MENDEL
You are mad already — your dreams are mad — the
Jew is hated here as everywhere — you are false to
your race.
DAVID
I keep faith with America. I have faith America
will keep faith with us.
\_He raises his hands in 7-eligious rapture toward the fiag
over the door.']
Flag of our great Republic, guardian of our homes,
whose stars and —
MENDEL
Spare me that rigmarole. Go out and marry your
Gentile and be happy.
DAVID
You turn me out .-*
MENDEL
Would you stay and break my mother's heart }
You know she would mourn for you as for a child of
her own. Go ! You have cast off the God of our
fathers !
DAVID
\_Thundrously.']
And the God of our children — does He demand
no service .''
104 THE MELTING-POT
\_Quieter, coming totvard his micle atid touching him affec-
tionately on the shoulder7\
You are right — I do need a wider world.
\_Expands his lungs.'\
I must go away.
MENDEL
Go,' then — I'll hide the truth — she must never
suspect — lest she mourn you as dead.
FRAU QUIXANO
{^Outside, in the kitchefiJ]
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
\_Both men turn toward the kitchen and listen.']
KATHLEEN
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
FRAU QUIXANO AND KATHLEEN
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
MENDEL
\_Bitterfy.']
A merry Pnriin!
\_The kitchen door opens and remains ajar. Frau Quixano
rushes in, carrying David's vioiin and bow. Kath-
leen looks in, grinning.'\
FRAU QUIXANO
\_Hilariously^
N21 spiel noch I spiel I
\^She holds the violin and bow appealingly toward David.]
THE MELTING-POT 105
MENDEL
\^Putting out a protesting hand.']
No, no, David — I couldn't bear it.
DAVID
But I must ! You said she mustn't suspect.
\_He looks lovingly at her as he loudly utters these zvords, which
are unintelligible to her.]
And it may be the last time I shall ever play for
her.
[ Changing to a mock metyy smile as he takes the violin and
bozv fro7n her.~\
Gewiss, Mninme I
\He starts the same old Slavic dance.]
FRAU QUIXANO
[ Childishly pleased.]
•He! He! He!
\_She claps on a false grotesque nose from her pocket.]
DAVID
\^Torn between laughter and tears.]
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
MENDEL
\Shocked,'\
Mutter!
I06 THE MELTING-POT
FRAU QUIXANO
Un^du auch!
\_She claps ajiother false nose on Mendel, laughing in child-
ish glee at the effect. Then she starts dancing to the
music, and Kathleen slips in a?id Joyously dances beside
her-l
DAVID
{Joining tearfully in the laughter.']
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Pla !
\_The curtain Jails quickly. It rises again upon the picture
oj Frau QuiXANO Jallen back into a chair, exhausted
with laughter, Janning herself with her aproji, while
Kathleen has dropped breathless across the arm of the
armchair; DAvm is still playing on, and Mendel, his
false nose torn off, stands by, glowering. The curtain
falls again and rises upo?i a final tableau of David in
his cloak and hat, stealing out of the door with his vio-
lin, casting a sad farewell glance at the old woman and
at the home which has sheltered him^
ACT III
\_April, about a month later. The scene changes to Miss Re-
vendal's sitting room at the Settlement House on a sunny
day. Simple, pretty furniture : a sofa, chairs, small^
table, etc. An open piano with music. Flowers and
books about. Fine art reproductions on walls. The
fireplace is on the left. A door on the left leads to the
~Tiair, and a door on the right to the interior. A servant
enters from the left, ushering in Baron and Baroness
Revendal and Quincy Davenport. The Baron is a
tall, stern, grizzled maji of military bearing, with a
narrow, fanatical forehead and jnartitiet niatinej's, but
otherwise of honest and distittguished appearance, with
a short, well-trimmed white beard and well-cut Furopean
clothes. Although his dignity is diminished by the con-
stant 7tervous suspiciousness of the Russian official, it is
never lost ; his nervousness, despite its comic side, being
visibly the tragic shadow of his position. His Fnglish
has only a touch of the foreign in accent and vocabulary
and is much superior to his wife^s, which comes to her
through her French. The Baroness is pretty and
dressed in red in the height of Paris fashion, but blazes
with barbaric jewels at neck and throat and W7'ist. She
gestures freely with her hand, which, when ungloved,
glitters ivith heavy rings. She is much younger than the
^aron and self-consciously fascinating. Her parasol,
which matches her costume, suggests the sunshine with-
out. Quincy Davenport is in a smart spring suit with
a motor dust-coat and cap, which last he lays dowft on
the mantelpiece. '\
- " ~ 107
I08 THE MELTING-POT
SERVANT
Miss Revendal is on the roof-garden. I'll go and
tell her.
\_Exit, toward the halL'\
BARON
A marvellous people, you Americans. Gardens in
the sky !
QUINCY
Gardens, forsooth ! We plant a tub and call it
Paradise. No, Baron. New York is the great stone
desert.
BARONESS
But ze big beautiful Park vere ve drove true .''
QUINCY
No taste, Baroness, modern sculpture and menag-
eries ! Think of the Medici gardens at Rome.
BARONESS
Ah, Rome !
[ With an ecstatic sigh, she drops into an armchair. Then
she takes out a dainty cigarette-case, pulls off her right-
hand glove, exhibiting her rings, and chooses a cigarette.
The Baron, seeing this, produces his match-box?^
QUINCY
And now, dear Baron Revendal, having brought
you safely to the den of the lioness, — if I may venture
to call your daughter so, — I must leave /c?^/ to do the
taming, eh ?
THE MELTING-POT 109
BARON
You are always of the most amiable.
\_He strikes a tnatch.'\
BARONESS
Tout a fait charniant.
[_The Baron tights her cigarette^
QUINCY
\_Bows gallantly^
Don't mention it. I'll just have my auto take me
to the Club, and then I'll send it back for you.
BARONESS
Ah, zank you — zat street-car looks horreeble.
\_She puffs out smoke^
BARON
Quite impossible. What is to prevent an anarchist
sitting next to you and shooting out your brains .-'
QUINCY
We haven't much of that here — I don't mean
brains. Ha! Ha! Ha!
BARON
But I saw desperadoes spying as we came off your
yacht.
QUINCY
Oh, that was newspaper chaps.
no THE MELTING-POT
BARON
\_Shakes his head.'\
No — they are circulating my appearance to all the
gang in the States. They took snapshots.
QUINCY
Then you're quite safe from recognition.
\_He sfiiggers.']
Didn't they ask you questions .-"
BARON
Yes, but I am a diplomat. I do not reply.
QUINCY
That's not very diplomatic here. Ha ! Ha !
BARON
Viable !
\^He claps his hand to his hip pocket, half-producing a pistol.
The Baroness looks equally anxious.']
QUINCY
What's up }
BARON
\_Points to window, whispers hoarsely.]
Regard ! A hooligan peeped in !
QUINCY
\Goes to window.]
Only some poor devil come to the Settlement.
THE MELTING-POT III
BARON
\_Hoarsely.'\
But under his arm — a bomb !
QUINCY
\Shqking his head smilingly.'\
A soup bowl.
BARONESS
Ha! Ha! Ha!
QUINCY
What makes you so nervous, Baron ?
[The Baron s/ij>s back his pistol, a little ashamedJ]
BARONESS
Ze Intellectuals and ze Bund, zey all hate my hus-
band because he is faizful to Christ
[ Crossing herself.']
and ze Czar.
QUINCY
But the Intellectuals are in Russia.
BARON
They have their branches here — the refugees are
the leaders — it is a diabolical network.
QUINCY
Well, anyhow, zve're not in Russia, eh ? No, no.
Baron, you're quite safe. Still, you can keep my
automobile as long as you like — I've plenty.
1 1 2 THE MEL TING-POT
BARON
A thousand thanks.
[ Wiping his forehead. '\
But surely no gentleman would sit in the public
car, squeezed between workingmen and shop-girls,
not to say Jews and Blacks.
QUINCY
It is done here. But we shall change all that.
Already we have a few taxi-cabs. Give us time, my
dear Baron, give us time. You mustn't judge us by
your European standard.
BARON
By the European standard, Mr. Davenport, you
put our hospitality to the shame. From the moment
you sent your yacht for us to Odessa —
QUINCY
Pray, don't ever speak of that again — you know
how anxious I was to get you to New York.
BARON
Provided we have arrived in time !
QUINCY
That's all right, I keep telling you. They aren't
married yet —
BARON
[^Grinding his teeth and shaking his fist J\
Those Jew-vermin — all my life I have suffered
from them !
THE MELTING-POT II3
QUINCY
We all suffer from them.
BARONESS
Zey are ze pests of ze civilisation.
BARON
But this supreme insult Vera shall not put on the
blood of the Revendals — not if I have to shoot her
down with my own hand — and myself after !
QUINCY
No, no, Baron, that's not done here. Besides, if
you shoot her down, where do / come in, eh }
BARON
\_Ptizzled.'\
Where you come in ">.
QUINCY
Oh, Baron ! Surely you have guessed that it is
not merely Jew-hate, but — er — Christian love. Eh .■*
\_Laughing uneasily. ]
BARON
You!
BARONESS
\^Clappinq her hands.']
Oh, charmant, charniant ! But it ees a romance !
114 THE MELTING-POT
BARON
But you are married !
BARONESS
\Downcast.'\
Ah, Old. Quel dommage, vat a peety !
QUINCY
You forget, Baron, we are in America. The law
giveth and the law taketh away.
\He sniggers^
BARONESS
It ees a vonderful country ! But your vife — hein ?
— vould she consent .''
QUINCY
She's mad to get back on the stage — I'll run a
theatre for her. It's your daughter's consent that's
the real trouble — she won't see me because I lost
my temper and told her to stop with her Jew. So I
look to you to straighten things out.
BARONESS
Mais parfaitement.
BARON
\_Frowning at herj]
You go too quick, Katusha. What influence have
I on Vera ? And you she has never even seen ! To
kick out the Jew-beast is one thing. . . .
THE MELTING-POT I15
QUINCY
Well, anyhow, don't shoot her — shoot the beast
rather.
\_Smggeringly.'\
BARON
Shooting is too good for the enemies of Christ.
[ Crossing himself.']
At Kishineff we stick the swine.
QUINCY
\_Interesfed.']
Ah ! I read about that. Did you see the mas-
sacre ?
BARON
Which one ? Give me a cigarette, Katusha.
\_She obeys.']
We've had several Jew-massacres.
QUINCY
Have you ? The papers only boomed one — four
or five years ago — about Easter time, I think —
BARON
Ah, yes — when the Jews insulted the procession of
the Host!
\_Taking a light from the cigarette iti his wife's mouth.'\
QUINCY
Did they ? I thought —
Il6 THE MELTING-POT
BARON
\_Sarcastically7\
I daresay. That's the lies they spread in the
West. They have the Press in their hands, damn
'em. But you see I was on the spot.
\_He drops into a chair.']
I had charge of the whole district.
QUINCY
{^StartledJ]
You!
BARON
Yes, and I hurried a regiment up to teach the
blaspheming brutes manners —
\_He puffs out a leisurely cloud.]
QUINCY
[ Whistling.']
Whew ! . . . I — I say, old chap, I mean Baron,
you'd better not say that here.
BARON
Why not ? I am proud of it.
BARONESS
My husband vas decorated for it — he has ze order
of St. Vladimir,
THE MELTING-POT II7
BARON
Second class ! Shall we allow these bigots to
mock at all we hold sacred ? The Jews are the
deadliest enemies of our holy autocracy and of the
only orthodox Church. Their Bund is behind all the
Revolution.
BARONESS
A plague-spot muz be cut out !
QUINCY
Well, I'd keep it dark if I were you. Kishineff is
a back number, and we don't take much stock in the
new massacres. Still, we're a bit squeamish —
BARON
Squeamish ! Don't you lynch and roast your
niggers .-'
QUINCY
Not officially. Whereas your Black Hundreds —
BARON
Black Hundreds ! My dear Mr. Davenport, they
are the white hosts of Christ
\_Crossing himself. ~\
and of the Czar, who is God's vicegerent on earth.
Have you not read the works of our sainted Pobie^
donostzeff, Procurator of the Most Holy Synod }
Il8 THE MELTING-POT
QUINCY
Well, of course, I always felt there was another
side to it, but still —
BARONESS
Perhaps he has right, Alexis. Our Ambassador
vonce told me ze Americans are more sentimental
zan civilised.
BARON
Ah, let them wait till they have ten million vermin
overrunning their country — we shall see how long
they will be sentimental. Think of it ! A burrow-
ing swarm creeping and crawling everywhere, ugh !
They ruin our peasantry with their loans and their
drink shops, ruin our army with their revolutionary
propaganda, ruin our professional classes by snatching
all the prizes and professorships, ruin our commercial
classes by monopolising our sugar industries, our oil-
fields, our timber-trade. . , . Why, if we gave them
equal rights, our Holy Russia would be entirely run
by them.
BARONESS
Mon dicii ! Cest vrai. Ve real Russians vould be-
come slaves.
QUINCY
Then what are you going to do with them }
BARON
One-third will be baptized, one-third massacred,
the other third emigrated here.
\He strikes a match to relight his cigarette.'^
THE MELTING-POT II9
QUINCY ^■
[ Sh udderingly. ]
Thank you, my dear Baron, — you've already sent
me one Jew too many. We're going to stop all alien
immigration.
BARON
To stop all alien — ? But that is barbarous !
QUINCY
Well, don't let us waste our time on the Jew-prob-
lem . . . our own little Jew-problem is enough, eh ?
Get rid of this little fiddler. Then / may have a
look in. Adieu, Baron,
BARON
Adieu.
\_Holdmg his hand.'\
But you are not really serious about Vera .-*
\The Baroness makes a gesture of annoyance ?i^
QUINCY
Not serious, Baron } Why, to marry her is the
only thing I have ever wanted that I couldn't get.
It is torture ! Baroness, I rely on your sympathy.
\He kisses her hand with a pretentious foreign air.'\
BARONESS
\_In sentimental approvaL~\ ^
Ah I Vani07ir! ramotir!
\_Exit QuiNCY Davenport, taking his cap in passing."]
You might have given him a little encouragement,
Alexis. VPS
120 THE MELTING-POT
BARON
Silence, Katusha. I only tolerated the man in
Europe because he was a link with Vera.
BARONESS
You accepted his yacht and his —
BARON
If I had known his loose views on divorce —
BARONESS
I am sick of your scruples. You are ze only poor
official in Bessarabia.
BARON
Be silent ! Have I not forbidden — ?
BARONESS
\Petulantly l\
Forbidden ! Forbidden ! All your life you have
served ze Czar, and you cannot afford a single auto-
mobile. A millionnaire son-in-law is just vat you owe
me,
BARON
What I owe you .''
BARONESS
Yes, ven I married you, I vas tinking you had a
good position. I did not know you were too honest
to use it. You vere not open viz me, Alexis.
THE MELTING-POT 121
BARON
You knew I was a Revendal. The Revendals keep
their hands clean. . . .
[ With a sudden start he tiptoes noiselessly to the door leading
to the hall and throws it open. Nobody is visible. He
closes it shamefacedly.'^
BARONESS
\^Has shared his nervousness till the door was opened, but
now bursts into mocking laughter."]
If you thought less about your precious safety, and
more about me and Vera —
BARON
Hush ! You do not know Vera. You saw I was
^ven afraid to give my name. She might have
St it me away as she sent away the Czar's plate of
V . ton.
BARONESS
Czar's plate of — }
BARON
Did I never tell you .-' When she was only a
schoolgirl — at the Imperial High School — the
Czar on his annual visit tasted the food, and Vera as
the show pupil was given the honour of finishing His
Majesty's plate.
BARONESS
[/« incredulous horror.']
And she sent it avay ?
122 THE MELTING-POT
BARON
Gave it to a servant.
\_Awed silence. '\
And then you thinK I can impose a husband on
her. No, Katusha, I have to win her love for my-
self, not for millionnaires.
BARONESS
\_Angry again ^
Alvays so affrightfully selfish !
BARON
I have no control over her, I tell you !
{^Bitterly.l
I never could control my womankind.
BARONESS
Because you zink zey are your soldiers. Silence !
Halt! Forbidden! Right Veel ! March!
BARON
\SuHenly.'\
I wish I did think they were my soldiers — I might
try the lash.
BARONESS
\_Springing up angrily, shakes parasol at hi?n.']
You British barbarian !
THE MELTING-POT 1 23
VERA
[ Outside the door kaditig to the interior^
Yes, thank you, Miss Andrews. I know I have
visitors. •••
BARON
\_Ec static ally. '\
Vera's voice !
\_The Baroness lowers her parasol. He looks yearningly
toward the door. It opejis. Enter Vera with inquir-
ing gaze."]
VERA
[ JVith a great shock of surprise. '\
Father ! !
BARON
My dearest darling! . . .
\He makes a movement toward her, but is checked by her
irresponsiveness. ]
Why, you've grown more beautiful than ever.
VERA
You in New York !
BARON
The Baroness wished to see America. Katusha,
this is my daughter.
BARONESS
\_In sugared sweetness.']
And mine, too, if she vill let me love her.
124 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
\_B owing coldly. '\
But how ? When ?
BARON
We have just come and —
BARONESS
\_D ashing /«.]
Zat charming young man lent us his yacht — he is
adorahble.
VERA
What charming young man ?
BARONESS
Ah, she has many, ze little coquette — ha ! ha ! ha !
\She touches V'E.^iA playfully with her parasoL'\
BARON
We wished to give you a pleasant surprise.
VERA
It is certainly a surprise.
BARON
[ Chilled.']
You are not very . . . daughterly.
VERA
Do you remember when you last saw me .-' You
did not claim me as a dausfhter then.
THE MELTING-POT 1 25
BARON
[ Covers his eyes with his hand.]
Do not recall it ; it hurts too much.
VERA
I was in the dock.
BARON
It was horrible. I hated you for the devil of re-
bellion that had entered into your soul, but I thanked
God when you escaped.
VERA
[_So/tened.']
I think I was more sorry for you than for myself.
I hope, at least, no suspicion fell on you.
BARONESS
[JSager/y.']
But it did — an avalanche of suspicion. He is still
buried under it. Vy else did they make Skovaloff
Ambassador instead of him ? Even now he risks
everyting to see you again. Ah, 7no7i ejifant, you
owe your fazer a grand reparation !
VERA
What reparation can I possibly make ?
BARON
\Passionately^
You can love me again. Vera.
126 THE MELTING-POT
BARONESS
\_Sfamping/oot.'\
Alexis, you are interrupting —
VERA
I fear, father, we have grown too estranged — our
ideas are so opposite —
BARON
But not now. Vera, surely not now ? You are no
longer
\_He lowers his voice a7id looks around^
a Revolutionist ?
VERA
Not with bombs, perhaps. I thank Heaven I was
caught before I had done any practical work. But
if you think I accept the order of things, you are mis-
taken. In Russia I fought against the autocracy —
BARON
Hush! Hush!
\_He looks round nervously 7^
VERA
Here I fight against the poverty. No, father, a
woman who has once heard the call will always be a
wild creature.
BARON
But
[^Lowering his voice.~\
those revolutionary Russian clubs here — you are not
a member ?
THE MELTING-POT 12/
VERA
I do not believe in Revolutions carried on at a safe
distance. I have found my life-work in America.
BARON
I am enchanted, Vera, enchanted.
BARONESS
[ Gushingly. '\
Permit me to kiss you, belle enfant.
VERA
I do not know you enough yet ; I will kiss my
father.
BARON
[ With a great cry of Joy ^
Vera!
\_Ife embraces her passionately.']
At last ! At last ! I have found my little Vera
again !
VERA
No, father, yottr Vera belongs to Russia with her
mother and the happy days of childhood. But for
their sakes —
\_She breaks down in emotion^
BARON
Ah, your poor mother !
BARONESS
{^Tartly:]
Alexis, I perceive I am too manyd
\She begins to go toward the door.]
128 THE MELTING-POT
BARON
No, no, Katusha. Vera will learn to love you, too.
VERA
\_To Baroness.]
What does my loving you matter 1 I can never
return to Russia.
BARONESS
S^Pausingr\
But ve can come here — often — ven you are
married.
VERA
When I am married .-'
\_Softly blushing?^
You know .''
BARONESS
\Smiling.'\
Ve know zat charming young man adores ze floor
your foot treads on !
VERA
\^B lushing^
You have seen David .''
BARON
\_Hoarselyi\
David !
\_He clenches his fist^
THE MELTING-POT 1 29
BARONESS
\_Half aside, as tmich gestured as spoken.'\
Sh ! Leave it to me.
{^Sweetlyr^
Oh, no, ve have not seen David.
VERA
[^Looking from one to the other."]
Not seen — .'' Then what — whom are you talk-
ing about .-*
BARONESS
About zat handsome, quite adorahble Mr. Daven-
port.
VERA
Davenport !
BARONESS
Who combines ze manners of Europe viz ze mill-
ions of America !
VERA
\_Breaks into girlish laughter.]
Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! So Mr. Davenport has been talk-
ing to you ! But you all seem to forget one small
point — bigamy is not permitted even to millionnaires.
BARONESS
Ah, not boz at vonce, but —
VERA
And do you think I would take another woman's
leavings .'' No, not even if she were dead.
K
I30 THE MELTING-POT
BARONESS
You are insulting !
VERA
I beg your pardon — I wasn't even thinking of
you. Father, to put an end at once to this absurd
conversation, let me inform you I am already en-
gaged.
BARON
\_Trembltng, hoarse. ~\
By name, David !
VERA
Yes, — David Quixano.
BARON
A Jew !
VERA
How did you know .? Yes, he is a Jew, a noble
Jew.
BARON
A Jew noble !
\^IIe laughs bitterly.'\
VERA
Yes — even as you esteem nobility — by pedigree.
In Spain his ancestors were hidalgos, favourites at
the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella ; but in the great
expulsion of 1492 they preferred exile in Poland to
baptism.
BARON
And you, a Revendal, would mate with an unbap-
tized dog .-'
THE MELTING-POT 131
VERA
Dog ! You call my husband a dog !
BARON
Husband ! God in heaven — are you married al-
ready ?
VERA •
No ! But not being unemployed millionnaires like
Mr. Davenport, we hold even our troth eternal.
[ Calmer.']
Our poverty, not your prejudice, stands in the way
of our marriage. But David is a musician of genius,
and some day —
BARONESS
A fiddler in a beer-hall ! She prefers a fiddler to
a millionnaire of ze first families of America !
VERA
[ Contemptuously.']
First families ! I told you David's family came to
Poland in 1492 — some months before America was
discovered.
BARON
Christ save us ! You have become a Jewess !
VERA
No more than David has become a Christian. We
were already at one — all honest people are. Surely,
father, all religions must serve the same God — since
.there is only one God to serve.
132 THE MELTING-POT
BARONESS
But ze girl is an ateist !
BARON
Silence, Katusha ! Leave me to deal with my
daughter.
\_Changing tone to pathos, taking her face between his
hands. '\
Oh, Vera, Verotschka, my dearest darling, I had
sooner you had remained buried in Siberia than
that —
\^He breaks downJ]
VERA
\Touched, sitting beside him.']
For you, father, I tvas as though buried in Siberia.
Why did you come here to stab yourself afresh ?
BARON
I wish to God I had come here earlier. I wish I
had not been so nervous of Russian spies. Ah,
VerotscJika, if you only knew how I have pored over
the newspaper pictures of you, and the reports of
your life in this Settlement !
VERA
You asked me not to send letters.
BARON
I know, I know — and yet sometimes I felt as if
I could risk Siberia myself to read your dear, dainty
handwriting again.
THE MELTING-POT 1 33
VERA
\_Still more softened.~\
Father, if you love me so much, surely you will
love David a little too — for my sake.
BARON
\_Dazed.'\
I — love — a Jew ? Impossible.
\^He shudders.']
VERA
\_^Moving away, icify.']
Then so is any love from me to you. You have
chosen to come back into my life, and after our years
of pain and separation I would gladly remember
only my old childish affection. But not if you hate
David. You must make your choice.
BARON
^Pitifully.']
Choice .'' I have no choice. Can I carry moun-
tains .'* No more can I love a Jew.
\_He rises resolutely.']
BARONESS
[ Who has turned away, fretting and fuming, turns back to
her husband, clapping her hands ^
Bravo !
134 ^^^^ MELTING-POT
VERA
[ Going to him again, coaxingiy.']
I don't ask you to carry mountains, but to drop
the mountains you carry — the mountains of preju-
dice. Wait till you see him.
BARON
I will not see him.
VERA
Then you will hear him — he is going to make
music for all the world. You can't escape hixn, f>apa-
s/ia, you with your love of music, any more than you
escaped Rubinstein.
BARONESS
Rubinstein vas not a Jew.
VERA
Rubinstein was a Jewish boy-genius, just like my
David.
BARONESS
But his parents vere baptized soon after his birth.
I had it from his patroness, ze Grand Duchess He-
lena Pavlovna.
VERA
And did the water outside change the blood with-
in .'' Rubinstein was our Court pianist and was deco-
rated by the Czar. And you, the Czar's servant,
dare to say you could not meet a Rubinstein.
BARON
[ Wave7'ing.~\
I did not say I could not meet a Rubinstein.
THE MELTING-POT 135
VERA
You practically said so. David will be even
greater than Rubinstein. Come, father, I'll tele-
phone for him ; he is only round the corner.
BARONESS
\_Excitedly.'\
Ve vill not see him !
VERA
\_Ignoring her.'\
He shall bring his violin and play to you. There !
You see, little father, you are already less frowning —
now take that last wrinkle out of your forehead.
\_She caresses his forehead.']
Never mind ! David will smooth it out with his
music as his Biblical ancestor smoothed that surly
old, Saul.
BARONESS
Ve vill not hear him !
BARON
Silence, Katusha ! Oh, my little Vera, I little
thought when I let you study music at Petersburg —
VERA
\_SmiH12g wheedlingfy.']
That I should marry a musician. But you see,
little father, it all ends in music after all. Now I
136 THE MELTING-POT
will go and perform on the telephone, I'm not angel
enough to bear one in here.
\She goes toward the door of the hall, smilivg happily^
BARON
\With a last agonized cry of resistance. "^
Halt!
VERA
\_Turning, makes mock military salute^
Yes, papasJia.
BARON
[^Overcome by her roguish smile. '\
You — I — he — do you love this J — this David so
much ?
VERA
\_Suddenly tragicj
It would kill me to give him up.
\Resuming smile.']
But don't let us talk of funerals on this happy day
of sunshine and reunion.
[She kisses her hand to him and exit toward the hall^
BARONESS
[^Atig?'ily.'\
You are in her hands as vax !
BARON
She is the only child I have ever had, Katusha.
Her baby arms curled round my neck ; in her baby
sorrows her wet face nestled against little father's.
[He drops on a chair, and leans his head on the table.]
THE MELTING-POT 1 37
BARONESS
[^Approaching tauntingly. 1
So you vill have a Jew son-in-law!
BARON
You don't know what it meant to me to feel her
arms round me again.
BARONESS
And a hook-nosed brat to call you grandpapa, and
nestle his greasy face against yours.
BARON
{Banging his fist on the table.'\
Don't drive me mad !
\His head drops againJ]
BARONESS
Then drive me home — I vill not meet him. . . .
Alexis !
\_She taps him on the shoulder with her parasol. He does not
move.^
Alexis Ivanovitch ! Do you not listen ! . . .
[She stamps her foot.]
Zen I go to ze hotel alone.
[She walks angrily toward the hall. Jicst before she
reaches the door, it opens, and the servant ushers in
Herr Pappelmeister with his umbrella. The Baron-
ess's tone cha?tges instantly to a sugared society accent.']
How do you do, Herr Pappelmeister ?
\_She extends her hand, 7uhich he takes limply.']
138 THE MELTING-POT
You don't remember me ? Noii f
\_Exit servafit.'\
Ve vere with Mr. Quincy Davenport at Wiesbaden
— ze Baroness Revendal.
PAPPELMEISTER
So!
\_He drops her hand.']
BARONESS
Yes, it vas ze Baron's entousiasm for you zat got
you your present position.
PAPPELMEISTER
\Arching his eyebrows.']
So!
BARONESS
Yes — zere he is!
\_She turns toward the Baron.]
Alexis, rouse yourself !
\She taps him with her parasol.]
Zis American air makes ze Baron so sleepy.
BARON
\_Rises dazedly and bows.]
Charmed to meet you, Herr —
BARONESS
Pappelmeister ! You remember ze great Pappel-
meister.
THE MELTING-POT 1 39
BARON
[ Waking up, becomes keen.~\
Ah, yes, yes, charmed — why do you never bring
your orchestra to Russia, Herr Pappelmeister ?
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Surprised.'\
Russia ? It never occurred to me to go to Russia
— she seems so uncivilised.
BARONESS
\_Angry.']
Uncivilised ! Vy, ve have ze finest restaurants in ze
vorld ! And ze best telephones !
PAPPELMEISTER
So?
BARONESS
Yes — Russia is affrightfully misunderstood.
\She sweeps away in btirnijig indignation. Pappelmeister
murmurs in deprecation. Re-enter Yera from the hall.
She is gay and happy. '\
VERA
He is coming round at once —
\_She utters a cry of pleased surprise.']
Herr Pappelmeister ! This is indeed a pleasure !
\_She gives Pappelmeister her hand, which he kisses^
I40
THE MELTING-POT
BARONESS
\Sotto voce to the Baron.]
Let us go before he comes.
\The Baron ignores her, his eyes hungrily on Vera.]
PAPPELMEISTER
{^To Vera.]
But I come again — you have visitors.
VERA
\_SniiUng. ]
Only my father and —
PAPPELMEISTER
\Surpnsed.~\
Your fader } Ach so !
\_He taps his forehead.']
Revendal !
BARONESS
\_Sotto voce to the Baron.]
I vill not meet a Jew, I tell you.
PAPPELMEISTER
But you vill vant to talk to your fader, and all /
vant is Mr. Quixano's address. De Irish girl at de
house says de bird is flown.
VERA
[ Gravely^
I don't know if I ought to tell you where the new
nest is —
THE MELTING-POT 141
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Dis appointed J\
Ach !
VERA
\Smiling?^
But I will produce the bird.
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Looks round.']
You vill broduce Mr. Quixano ?
VERA
[^Merrily.']
By clapping my hands.
\_Mysteriously.~\
I am a magician.
BARON
[ Whose eyes have been glued on Vera.]
You are indeed ! I don't know how you have be-
witched me.
\_The Baroness glares at him.~\
VERA
Dear little father !
\_She crosses to him and strokes his hair.]
Herr Pappelmeister, tell father about Mr. Quixano's
music.
142 THE MELTING-POT
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Shaking his head.'\
Music cannot be talked about.
VERA
\_Smilmg?\
That's a nasty one for the critics. But tell father
what a genius Da — Mr. Quixano is.
BARONESS
[Desperately intervening?[
Good-bye, Vera.
\_She thrusts out her hand, which Vera takes?^
I have a headache. You muz excuse me. Herr
Pappelmeister, an plaisir de vous revoir.
[Pappelmeister hastens to the door, which he holds open.
The Baroness turns and glares at the BaronT^
BARON
[Agitated^
Let me see you to the auto —
BARONESS
You could see me to ze hotel almost as quick.
BARON
\_To Vera.]
I won't say good-bye, VerotscJika — I shall be
back.
\_He goes toward the hall, theti turns.']
You will keep him waiting .''
[Vera smiles lovingly.]
THE MELTING-POT I43
BARONESS
You are keeping fne vaiting.
\He turns quickly. Exeicnt Baron and Baroness\
PAPPELMEISTER
And now broduce Mr. Quixano !
VERA
Not so fast. What are you going to do with him .?
PAPPELMEISTER
Put him in my orchestra !
VERA
\_Ecstatic7\
Oh, you dear !
[ The7i Jter tone changes to disappointmentr\
But he won't go into Mr. Davenport's orchestra.
PAPPELMEISTER
It is no more Mr. Davenport's orchestra. He fired
me, don't you remember.-' Now I boss — how say
you in American .-'
VERA
\_Smiling!\
Your own show.
PAPPELMEISTER
Ja, my own band. Ven I left dat comic opera
millionnaire, dey all shtick to me almost to von man.
144 ^-^^ MELTING-POT
VERA
How nice of them !
PAPPELMEISTER
All egsept de Christian — he vas de von man. He
shtick to de millionnaire. So I lose my brincipal first
violin.
VERA
And Mr. Quixano is to — oh, how delightful !
\She claps her hands girlishly.']
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Looks round mischievously. ]
Ack, de magic failed.
VERA
\_Puzzled.~\
Eh!
PAPPELMEISTER
You do not broduce him. You clap de hands —
but you do not broduce him. Ha ! Ha ! Ha !
\_IIe breaks into a great roar of genial laughter 1^
VERA
\_Chiming in merrily r\
Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! But I said I have to know every-
thing first. Will he get a good salary .-'
PAPPELMEISTER
Enough to keep a vife and eight children !
THE MELTING-POT 1 45
VERA
\_B lushing^
But he hasn't a —
PAPPELMEISTER
No, but de Christian had — he get de same — I
mean salary, ha ! ha ! ha ! not children. Den he
can be independent^ — -vedder de fool-public like his
American symphony or not — nicht wahr?
VERA
You are good to us —
\_HastiIy correcting herself. '\
to Mr. Quixano.
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Smiling.'\
And aldough you cannot broduce him, I broduce
his symphony. Was f
VERA
Oh, Herr Pappelmeister ! You are an angel.
PAPPELMEISTER
Neiii, nein, nichi liebes Kind ! I fear I haf not de
correct shape for an angel.
\_He laughs heartily. A knock at the door from the hall.']
L
146 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
\_Merrily^
Now I clap my hands.
\She claps ^
Come !
\The door opens^
Behold him !
\She makes a conjurer's gesture. David, bareheaded, ca7-ry-
ing his fiddle, opejis the door, and stands staring in
amazement at Pappelmeister. ]
DAVID
I thought you asked me to meet your father.
PAPPELMEISTER
She is a magician. She has changed us.
\_He waves his umbrella^
Hey presto, was ? Ha ! Ha ! Ha !
\_IIe goes to David, and shakes hands. '\
Und zvie gehfsf I hear you've left home.
DAVID
Yes, but I've such a bully cabin —
PAPPELMEISTER
\Alarmed.'\
You are sailing avay .-'
THE MELTING-POT 147
VERA
{^Laugliing.'l
No, no — that's only his way of describing his two-
dollar-a-month garret.
DAVID
Yes — my state-room on the top deck !
VERA
\^SmUing.'\
Six foot square.
DAVID
But three other passengers aren't squeezed in, and
it never pitches and tosses. It's heavenly.
PAPPELMEISTER
^SmilingP^
And from heaven you flew down to blay in dat
beer-hall. Was ?
[David looks surprised.']
I heard you.
DAVID
You ! What on earth did you go there for .?
PAPPELMEISTER
Vat on earth does one go to a beer-hall for ? Ha !
Ha! Ha! For vawter ! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ven I
hear you blay, I dink mit myself — if my blans
succeed and I get Carnegie Hall for Saturday
148 THE MELTING-POT
Symphony Concerts, dat boy shall be one of my first
violins. Was ?
\_IIe slaps David ott the left shoulder. '\
DAVID
[ Overwhelmed, ecstatic, yet wmcing a little at the slap on his
wound.']
Be one of your first —
\_Remembering, ]
Oh, but it is impossible.
VERA
S^Alarmed?^
Mr. Quixano ! You must not refuse.
DAVID
But does Herr Pappelmeister know about the
wound in my shoulder .''
PAPPELMEISTER
{Agitated^
You haf been vounded .''
DAVID
Only a legacy from Russia — but it twinges in some
weathers.
PAPPELMEISTER
And de pain ubsets your blaying .-'
THE MELTING-POT 1 49
DAVID
Not SO much the pain — it's all the dreadful mem-
ories—
VERA
\_Alai-med?[
Don't talk of them,
DAVID
I miist explain to Herr Pappelmeister — it wouldn't
be fair. Even now
\_Shudde}-ing.'\
there comes up before me the bleeding body of my
mother, the cold, fiendish face of the Russian officer,
supervising the slaughter —
VERA
Hush! Hush!
DAVID
\Hysterically^
Oh, that butcher's face — there it is — hovering in
the air, that narrow, fanatical forehead, that —
PAPPELMEISTER
\_.Briiigs down his umbrella with a bang.']
Scklussf No man ever dared break down under
me. My baton will beat avay all dese faces and
fancies. Out v/ith your violin !
\_IIe laps his umbrella impei-iotisly on the table.]
Keinen Miit verlieren I
I50 THE MELTING-POT
[David takes out his violin from its case and puts it to
his shoulder, Pappelmeister keeping up a hypnotic tor-
rent of e^icouraging Gert?ian cries.']
Also I Fertig ! Anfangen I
\He raises and zvaves his umbrella like a baton.']
Von, dwo, dree, four —
DAVID
[ With a great sigh of relief]
Thanks, thanks — they are gone already.
PAPPELMEISTER
Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! You see. And ven ve blay your
American symphony —
DAVID
{^Dazed.]
You will play my American symphony ?
VERA
\_Disappoi7ited.]
Don't you jump for joy?
DAVID
\Still dazed but ecstatic?^
Herr Pappelmeister !
\_Changing back to despondency^]
But what certainty is .there your Carnegie Hall
audience would understand me ? It would be the
same smart set.
\He drops dejectedly into a chair and lays down his violin.]
THE MELTING-POT 151
PAPPELMEISTER
Ach, nein. Of course, some — ve can't keep
peoble out merely because dey pay for deir seats.
Was?
\_He laughs^
DAVID
It was always my dream to play it first to the new
immigrants — those who have known the pain of the
old world and the hope of the new.
PAPPELMEISTER
Try it on the dog. Was ?
DAVID
Yes — on the dog that here will become a man !
PAPPELMEISTER
\^Shakes his head.'\
I fear neider dogs nor men are a musical breed.
DAVID
The immigrants will not understand my music with
their brains or their ears, but with their hearts and
their souls.
VERA
Well, then, why shouldn't it be done here — on our
Roof- Garden ?
DAVID
\Jumping up.'\
A Bas-Kol! A Bas-Kol!
152 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
What are you talking ?
DAVID
Hebrew ! It means a voice from heaven.
VERA
Ah, but will Herr Pappelmeister consent ?
PAPPELMEISTER
\^Bo'wing.'\
Who can disobey a voice from heaven ? . . . But
ven ?
VERA
On some holiday evening. . . . Why not the
Fourth of July?
DAVID
\_Still more ecstaticP\^
Another Bas-Kol ! . . . My American Symphony !
Played to the People ! Under God's sky ! On In-
dependence Day ! With all the —
[ Waving his hand expressively, sighs voluphiously^
That will be too perfect.
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Smili7ig. ]
Dat has to be seen. You must permit me to invite —
THE MELTING-POT 1 53
DAVID
[/« horror.'^
Not the musical critics !
PAPPELMEISTER
[^Raising doth hands with umbrella in equal horror?^
Gott bewahre ! But I'd like to invite all de persons
in New York who really undershtand music.
VERA
Splendid ! But should we have room ?
PAPPELMEISTER
Room ? I vant four blaces.
VERA
\SmilingI\
You are severe ! Mr. Davenport was right.
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Smiling.'\
Perhaps de oders vill be out of town. Also !
\Holding out his hand to David.]
You come to Carnegie to-morrow at eleven. Yes }
Frdidein.
\_Kisses her hand^
Auf wiederseheii !
[Going.']
On de Roof-Garden — nic/il zvaJir f
154 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
\S)niling.'\
Wind and weather permitting.
PAPPELMEISTER
I haf alvays mein umbrella. Was ? Ha ! Ha !
Ha!
VERA
\^Murmuring.'\
Isn't he a darling 1 Isn't he — }
PAPPELMEISTER
[^Pausing suddenlyl\
But ve never settled de salary.
DAVID
Salary !
\He looks dazedly from one to the other?[
For the honour of playing in your orchestra !
PAPPELMEISTER
Shylock ! ! . . . Never mind — ve settle de pound
of flesh to-morrow. Lebe woJil !
[Exit, the door closes^
VERA
[Suddenly miserable.'^
How selfish of you, David !
DAVID
Selfish, Vera ?
THE MELTING-POT 1 55
VERA
Yes — not to think of your salary. It looks as if
you didn't reatly love me.
DAVID
Not love you .-' I don't understand.
VERA
\Half in tears ^
Just when I was so happy to think that now we
shall be able to marry.
DAVID
Shall we ? Marry .-* On my salary as first violin .-'
VERA
Not if you don't want to.
DAVID
Sweetheart ! Can it be true } How do you
know ?
VERA
\Smiling.'\
r^n not a Jew. I asked.
DAVID
My guardian angel !
\_Embraci71g her. He sits down, she lovingly at his feet.'\
VERA
\Looking up at him.']
Then you do care .''
156 THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
What a question !
VERA
And you don't think wholly of your music and for-
get me ?
DAVID
Why, you are behind all I write and play !
>
VERA .
[ With jealous passion. '\
Behind ? But I want to be before ! I want you to
love me first, before everything.
DAVID
I do put you before everything.
VERA
You are sure ? And nothing shall part us ?
DAVID
Not all the seven seas could part you and me.
VERA
And you won't grow tired of me — not even when
you are world-famous — ?
DAVID
\_A shade petulant.'^
Sweetheart, considering I should owe it all to
you —
THE MELTING-POT 1 57
VERA
\_Drawitig his head down to her breast'^
Oh, David ! David ! Don't be angry with poor
little Vera if she doubts, if she wants to feel quite
sure. You see father has talked so terribly, and
after all I was brought up in the Greek Church, and
we oughtn't to cause all this suffering unless —
DAVID
Those who love us must suffer, and we must suffer
in their suffering. It is live things, not dead metals,
that are being melted in the Crucible,
VERA
Still, we ought to soften the suffering as much
as —
DAVID
Yes, but only Time can heal it.
VERA
[ With transition to happiness.'\
But father seems half-reconciled already ! Dear
little father, if only he were not so narrow about Holy
Russia !
DAVID
If only my folks were not so narrow about Holy
Judea ! But the ideals of the fathers shall not be
foisted on the children. Each generation must live
and die for its own dream.
158 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
Yes, David, yes. You are the prophet of the liv-
ing present. I am so happy.
\She looks tip wis tf idly. '\
You are happy, too .-'
DAVID
I am dazed — I cannot realise that all our troubles
have melted away — it is so sudden.
VERA
You, David ? Who always see everything in such
rosy colours ? Now that the whole horizon is one
great splendid rose, you almost seem as if gazing out
toward a blackness —
DAVID
We Jews are cheerful in gloom, mistrustful in joy.
It is our tragic history —
VERA
But you have come to end the tragic history ; to
throw off the coils of the centuries.
DAVID
\_Smiling again.~\
Yes, yes. Vera. You bring back my sunnier self.
I must be a pioneer on the lost road of happiness.
To-day shall be all joy, all lyric ecstasy.
\_He takes up his violin.']
THE MELTING-POT 1 59
Yes, I will make my old fiddle-strings burst with
joy!
\He dashes into a jtibilant tarantella. After a few bars
there is a knock at the door leading from the hall;
their happy faces betray no sign of hearing it; then
the door slightly opens, and Baron Revendal's head
looks hesitatingly in. As David perceives it, his features
work convulsively, his string breaks with a tragic snap,
and he totters backward into Vera's arms. Hoarsely^
The face ! The face !
VERA
David — my dearest !
DAVID
\_Nis eyes closed, his violin clasped mechanically. '\
Don't be anxious — I shall be better soon — I
oughtn't to have talked about it — the hallucination
has never been so complete.
VERA
Don't speak — rest against Vera's heart — till it
has passed away.
[77^1? Baron comes dazedly forzuard, half with a shocked
sense of Vera's impropriety, half to relieve her of her
burden. She motions him back.~\
This is the work of your Holy Russia.
l60 THE MELTING-POT
BARON
\_Harshly^
What is the matter with him ?
[David's violin and bow drop from his grasp and fall on the
table.']
DAVID
The voice !
\_He opens his eyes, stares frenziedly at the Baron, then
struggles out of Vera's anns.]
VERA
\Trying to stop him.]
Dearest —
DAVID
Let me go.
\_He moves like a sleep-walker toward the paralysed Baron,
puts out his hand, and testingly touches the face.]
BARON
\_Shuddering back.]
Hands off!
DAVID
[ With a great cry.]
A-a-a-h ! It is flesh and blood. No, it is stone —
the man of stone ! Monster !
\^He raises his hatid frenziedly.]
THE MELTING-POT l6l
BARON
[ Whipping out his pistol.^
Back, dog !
[Vera darts between them with a shnek.']
DAVID
\_Frozen again, surveying the pistol stonily.']
Ha ! You want my life, too. Is the cry not yet
loud enough ?
BARON
The cry ?
DAVID
l^Mystically.']
Can you not hear it ? The voice of the blood of
my brothers crying out against you from the ground ?
Oh, how can you bear not to turn that pistol against
yourself and execute upon yourself the justice which
Russia denies you ?
BARON
Tush !
[Pocketing the pistol a little shamefacedly.']
VERA
Justice on himself ? For what ?
DAVID
For crimes beyond human penalty, for obscenities
beyond human utterance, for —
l62 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
You are raving.
DAVID
Would to heaven I were !
VERA
But this is my father.
DAVID
Your father ! . . . God !
\_He staggers.'\
BARON
Come, Vera, I told you —
VERA
\Frantically, shrinking back.'\
Don't touch me!
BARON
\Starting back in amdzel\
Vera!
VERA
\Hoarsely^
Say it's not true.
BARON
What is not true .-•
VERA
What David said. It was the mob that massacred
— you had no hand in it.
THE MELTING-POT 1 63
BARON
\SuUenlyP[
I was there with my soldiers,
DAVID
{Leaning, pale, against a chair, hisses]
And you looked on with that cold face of hate —
while my mother — my sister —
BARON
{Suilenly.']
I could not see everything.
DAVID
Now and again you ordered your soldiers to fire —
VERA
\l7i joyous relief P\
Ah, he did check the mob — he didXeSS. his soldiers
to fire.
DAVID
At any Jew who tried to defend himself.
VERA
Great God !
{She falls on the sofa and buries her head o?i the cushion,
moaning.]
Is there no pity in heaven ?
1 64 THE MELTING-POr
DAVID
There was no pity on earth.
BARON
It was the People avenging itself, Vera. The
People rose like a flood. It had centuries of spolia-
tion to wipe out. The voice of the People is the
voice of God.
VERA
\^Moaning^
But you could have stopped them.
BARON
I had no orders to defend the foes of Christ
[ Crossing himself ^^
and the Czar. The People —
VERA
But you could have stopped them.
BARON
Who can stop a flood.'' I did my duty. A soldier's
duty is not so pretty as a musician's.
VERA
But you could have stopped them.
BARON
\_Losing all patience.']
Silence! You talk like an ignorant girl, blinded
by passion. ThQ pogrom is a holy crusade. Are we
THE MELTING-POT 165
Russians the first people to crush down the Jew?
No — from the dawn of history the nations have had
to stamp upon him — the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the
Persians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans —
DAVID
Yes, it is true. Even Christianity did not invent
hatred. But not till Holy Church arose were we
burnt at the stake, and not till Holy Russia arose were
our babes torn limb from limb. Oh, it is too much !
Delivered from Egypt four thousand years ago, to be
slaves to the Russian Pharaoh to-day.
\He falls as if kneeling on a chair, and leans his head on the
rail.^
O God, shall we always be broken on the wheel of
history? How long, O Lord, how long?
BARON
l^Savagely.']
Till you are all stamped out, ground into your dirt.
\_Tenderly.^
Look up, little Vera! You saw \\o^ papasha loves
you — how he was ready to hold out his hand — and
how this cur tried to bite it. Be calm — tell him a
daughter of Russia cannot mate with dirt.
VERA
Father, I will be calm. T will speak without passion
or blindness. I will tell David the truth. I was never
absolutely sure of my love for him — perhaps that
l66 THE MELTING-POT
was why I doubted his love for me — often after our
enchanted moments there would come a nameless
uneasiness, some vague instinct, relic of the long cen-
turies of Jew-loathing, some strange shrinking from
his Christless creed —
BARON
[ With an exultatit cry.']
Ah ! She is a Revendal.
VERA
But now —
[She rises, and walks firmly toward Tikwn?^
now, David, I come to you, and I say in the words
of Ruth, thy people shall be my people and thy
God my God !
\_She stretches out her hands to David,]
BARON
You shameless — !
\He stops as he perceives David i-emains impassive^
VERA
[ With agojiised cry.]
David !
DAVID
\_In low, icy tofies.]
You cannot come to me. There is a river of blood
between us.
THE MELTING-POT 1 67
VERA
Were it seven seas, our love must cross them.
DAVID
Easy words to you. You never saw that red flood
bearing the mangled breasts of women and the spat-
tered brains of babes and sucklings. Oh !
\He covers his eyes with his hands. The Baron /urns
away in gloomy impotence. At last David begins to
speak quietly, almost dreamily. ~\
It was your Easter, and the_air-was full ofjiolv bells
and t^ streets of holy processions — priests in black
and girls in white and waving palms and crucifixes,
and everybody exchanging Easter eggs and kissing
one another three times on the mouth in token of
peace and good-will, and even the Jew-boy felt the
spirit of love brooding over the earth, though he did
not then know that this Christ, whom holy chants pro-
claimed re-risen, was born in the form of a brother Jew.
And what added to the peace and holy joy was that our
own Passover was shining before us. My mother had
already made the raisin v/ine, and my greedy little
brother Solomon had sipped it on the sly that very
morning. We were all at home — all except my
father — he was away in the little Synagogue at
v/hich he was cantor. Ah, such a voice he had — a
voice of tears and thunder — when he prayed it was
like a wounded soul beating at the gates of Heaven —
but he sang even more beautifully in the ritual of
1 68 THE MELTING-POT
home, and how we were looking forward to his hymns
at the Passover table —
\He breaks down. The Baron has gradually turned round
under the spell of DAvm's story and now listens hyp-
notised.']
I was playing my cracked little fiddle. Little
Miriam was making her doll dance to it. Ah, that
decrepit old china doll — the only one the poor child
had ever had — I can see it now — one eye, no nose,
half an arm. We were all laughing to see it caper to
my music. . . . My father flies in through the door,
desperately clasping to his breast the Holy Scroll.
We cry out to him to explain, and then we see that
in that beloved mouth of song there is no longer a
tongue — only blood. He tries to bar the door — a
mob breaks in — we dash out through the back into
the street. There are the soldiers — and the Face —
[Vera's eyes involuntarily seek the face of her father, who
shrinks away as their eyes meet.]
VERA
\^In a low sob.~\
O God!
DAVID
When I came to myself, with a curious aching in
my left shoulder, I saw lying beside me a strange
shapeless Something —
[David points weirdly to the floor, andVis.KA, hunched for-
wards, gazes stonily at if, as if seeing the horror.]
THE MELTING-POT 169
By the crimson doll in what seemed a hand I knew
it must be little Miriam. The doll was a dream of
beauty and perfection beside the mutilated mass
which was all that remained of my sister, of my
mother, of greedy little Solomon — / Oh ! You Chris-
tians can only see that rosy splendour on the horizon
of happiness. And the Jew didn't see rosily enough
for you, ha! ha! ha! the Jew who gropes in one
great crimson mist.
\He breaks down in spasmodic, ironic, long-drawn, terrible
laughter. '\
VERA
\Trying vainly to tranquillise him.'\
Hush, David ! Your laughter hurts more than
tears. Let Vera comfort you.
\_She kneels by his chair, tries to put her arms round him.']
DAVID
[^Shuddering.']
Take them away ! Don't you feel the cold dead
pushing between us ?
VERA
\_Unfaltering, moving his face toward her lips.]
Kiss me !
DAVID
I should feel the blood on my lips.
VERA
My love shall wipe it out.
170 THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
Love ! Christian love !
\_He unwinds her clinging arms ; she sinks prostrate on the
floor as he rises. ]
For this I gave up my people — darkened the
home that sheltered me — there was always a still,
small voice at my heart calling me back, but I heeded
nothing — only the voice of the butcher's daughter.
\BrokenIy^^
Let me go home, let me go home.
\_He looks litigeringly at Vera's prostrate form, hit over-
coming the instiiict to touch and comfort her, begins tot-
tering with uncertain pauses toward the door leading
to the hall.']
BARON
\_Extending his arms in relief ajid longing.]
And here is your home, Vera !
\He raises her gradually from the floor ; she is dazed, but
suddenly she becofnes conscious of whose arms she is in,
and utters a cry of repulsion^
VERA
Those arms reeking from that crimson river !
\_She falls back.]
BARON
[Sullenly^
Don't echo that babble. You came to these arms
often enough when they were fresh from the battle-
field.
THE MELTING-POT 171
VERA
But not from the shambles ! You heard what he
called you. Not soldier — butcher ! Oh, I dared to
dream of happiness after my nightmare of Siberia,
but you — you —
\_Slie breaks down for the first time in hysterical sobs ^
BARON
\^Brokenly.'\
Vera ! Little Vera ! Don't cry ! You stab me !
VERA
You thought you were ordering your soldiers to
fire at the Jews, but it was my heart they pierced.
She sobs onJ]
BARON
. . . And my own. . . . But we will comfort each
other. I will go to the Czar myself — with my fore-
head to the earth — to beg for your pardon ! . . .
Come, put your wet face to little father's. . . .
VERA
\_Violently pushing his face away.']
I hate you ! I curse the day I was born your
daughter !
[^She staggers toward the door leading to the interior. At
the same moment David, who has i-eached the door
leading to the hall, now feeling subconsciously that Vera
is going and that his last reason for lingering on is re-
moved, turns the door-handle. The click attracts the
Baron's atte?ition, he veers round.]
1/2 THE MELTING-POT
BARON
\To David.]
Halt!
[David turns mechanically. Vera drifts out through her
door, leaving the two men face to face. The Baron
beckons to David, who as if hypnotised moves nearer.
The Baron whips out his pistol, slowly crosses to
David, who stands as if awaitifig his fate. The
Baron hands the pistol to David.]
You were right !
\_Ife steps back swiftly with a touch of stern heroism
into the attitude of the culprit at a military execution,
awaiting the bullet.~\
Shoot me !
DAVID
[ Takes the pistol mechanically, looks long and pensively at it
as with a sense of its irrelevance. Gradually his arm
droops and lets the pistol fall on the table, and there his
hand touches a string of his violin, which yields a little
note. Thus reminded of it, he picks up the violifi, and
as his fingers draw out the broken string he murmurs']
I must get a new string.
\_He resumes his dragging march toward the door, repeating
maunderingly~\
I must get a new string.
[ The curtain falls ^
ACT IV
\_Saturday, July 4, evening. The Roof- Garden of the Set-
tlement House, showing a beautiful, far-stretching pano-
rama of New York, with its irregular sky-buildings on
the left, and the harbour with its Statue of Liberty on
the right. Everything is wet and gleami?ig after rain.
Parapet at the back. Elevator on the right. Entrance
from the stairs on the left. In the sky hang heavy
clouds through which thin, golden lifies of sunset are Just
beginning to labour. David is discovered on a bench,
hugging his violin case to his breast, gazing moodily at
the sky. A muffled sound of applause comes up from be-
low and continues with varying intensity through the
early part of the scene. Through it comes the noise of
the elevator ascending. Mendel steps out and hurries
forward.'^
MENDEL
Come down, David ! Don't you hear them shout-
ing for you ?
\He passes his hand over the wet bench.']
Good heavens ! You will get rheumatic fever !
DAVID
Why have you followed me ?
MENDEL
Get up — everything is still damp.
173
1/4 THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
\_Ristng, gloomily. '\
Yes, there's a damper over everything.
MENDEL
Nonsense — the rain hasn't damped your triumph
in the least. In fact, the more delicate effects wouldn't
have gone so well in the open air. Listen !
DAVID
Let them shout. Who told you I was up here .-•
MENDEL
Miss Revendal, of course.
DAVID
[^Agitated.']
Miss Revendal .? How should she know .?
MENDEL
\_Sullenly.']
She seems to understand your crazy ways.
DAVID
\Passing his hand over his eyes. '\
Ah, yott never understood me, uncle. . . . How
did she look .-' Was she pale .''
MENDEL
Never mind about Miss Revendal. Pappelmeister
wants you — the people insist on seeing you. No-
body can quiet them.
THE MELTING-POT 175
DAVID
They saw me all through the symphony in my place
in the orchestra.
MENDEL
They didn't know you were the composer. Now
Miss Revendal has told them.
\_Louder applause.']
There! Eleven minutes it has gone on — like for
an office-seeker. You micst come and show yourself.
DAVID
I won't — I'm not an office-seeker. Leave me to
my misery.
MENDEL
Your misery .? With all this glory and greatness
opening before you ? Wait till you're my age —
\_Shouis of " QuiXANO ! "]
You hear ! What is to be done with them ^
DAVID
Send somebody on the platform to remind them
this is the interval for refreshments !
MENDEL
Don't be cynical. You know your dearest wish was
to melt these simple souls with your music. And
now —
DAVID
Now I have only made my own stony.
176 THE MELTING-POT
MENDEL
You are right. You are stone all over — ever since
you came back home to us. Turned into a pillar of
salt, mother says — like Lot's wife.
DAVID
That was the punishment for looking backward.
Ah, uncle, there's more sense to that old Bible than
the Rabbis suspect. Perhaps that is the secret of our
people's paralysis — we are always looking backward,
\He drops hopelessly into an iron garden-chair behind him^
MENDEL
{Stopping him before he touches the seat. ]
Take care — it's sopping wet. You don't look back-
ward enough.
\_He takes out his handkerchief and begins drying the
chair."]
DAVID
\Faintly smiling.]
I thought you wanted the salt to melt.
MENDEL
It is melting a little if you can smile. Do you
know, David, I haven't seen you smile since that
Piirim afternoon }
THE MELTING-POT 1 77
DAVID
You haven't worn a false nose since, uncle.
\He laughs bitterly ?[
Ha! Ha! Ha! Fancy masquerading in America
because twenty-five centuries ago the Jews escaped a
pogrom in Persia. Two thousand five hundred years
ago ! Aren't we uncanny }
\_He drops into the wiped chair^
MENDEL
\_Angrily.'\
Better you should leave us altogether than mock
at us. I thought it was your Jewish heart that drove
you back home to us ; but if you are still hankering
after Miss Revendal —
DAVID
\Pained^
Uncle !
MENDEL
I'd rather see you marry her than go about like
this. You couldn't make the house any gloomier.
DAVID
Go back to the concert, please. They have quieted
down.
MENDEL
\HesitaHng?[
And you }
N
178 THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
Oh, I'm not playing in the popular after-pieces.
Pappelmeister guessed I'd be broken up with the stress
of my own symphony — he has violins enough.
MENDEL
Then you don't want to carry this about.
\_Takingthe violui frotn David's arvis^^
DAVID
[ Clinging to it.'\
Don't rob me of my music — it's all I have.
MENDEL
You'll spoil it in the wet. I'll take it home.
DAVID
No —
\He suddenly catches sight of two figures entering from the left,
— Frau Quixano and Kathleen clad in their best, and
wearing tiny American flags iji honour of Independence
Day. Kathleen escorts the old lady, with the air of a
guardian angel, on her slow, tottering course toward
David. Frau Quixano is pufling and panting after
the many stairs. David jumps up in surprise, releases
the violin case to Mendel.]
They at my symphony !
MENDEL
Mother would come — even though, being Shabbos,
she had to walk.
THE MELTING-POT lyg
DAVID
But wasn't she shocked at my playing on the
Sabbath ?
MENDEL
No — that's the curious part of it. She said, even
as a boy you played your fiddle on Shabbos, and if
the Lord has stood it all these years, He must con-
sider you an exception.
DAVID
You see ! She's more sensible than you thought.
I daresay whatever I had done she'd have considered
me an exception.
MENDEL
\_In sullen acquiescence^
I suppose geniuses are.
KATHLEEN
\_Reachingthem ; panting with admiration and breathlessness.']
Oh, Mr. David ! it was like midnight mass ! But
the misthress was ashleep.
DAVID
Asleep !
[^Laughs half -merrily, half -sadly ?^
Ha! Ha! Ha!
FRAU QUIXANO
[Panting and laughing in respo?ise.^
He ! He ! He ! Dovidel lacht widder. He ! He !
He!
l8o THE MELTING-POT
\^She touches his arm affectionately, but feeling his wet coat
utters a cry of horror^
Dh bist nass !
DAVID
Es ist gar nicht, Miimme — my clothes are thick.
\_She fusses over him, wiping him dotvn with her gloved
hand.']
MENDEL
But what brought you up here, Kathleen ?
KATHLEEN
Sure, not the elevator. The misthress said 'twould
be breaking the Shabbos to ride up in it.
DAVID
[ Uneasily?^
But did — did Miss Revendal send you up .-'
KATHLEEN
And who else should be axin' the misthress if she
wasn't proud of Mr. David .'' Faith, she's a sweet
lady.
MENDEL
\_Impatiently .'\
Don't chatter, Kathleen.
KATHLEEN
But, Mr. Quixano — !
DAVID
\Sweetly.'\
Please take your mistress down again — don't let
her walk.
THE MELTING-POT l8l
KATHLEEN
But Shabbos isn't out yet !
MENDEL
Chattering again !
DAVID
[ Gently. '\
There's no harm, Kathleen, in going down in the
elevator.
KATHLEEN
Troth, I'll egshplain to her that dropping down
isn't riding.
DAVID
\^Smili)ig.'\
Yes, tell her dropping down is natural — not work^
like flying up.
[Kathleen begins to move toward the stairs, explaining to
Frau Quixano.]
And, Kathleen ! You'll get her some refreshments.
KATHLEEN
\ Turns, glaring."]
Refrishments, is it ? Give her refrishments where
they mix the mate with the butther-plates ! Oh, Mr.
David !
\_She moves off toward the stairs in reproachful sorrow.]
MENDEL
^Smiling.]
I'll get her some coffee.
1 82 THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
\Smiling^
Yes, that'll keep her awake. Besides, Pappelmeis-
ter was so sure the people wouldn't understand me,
he's relaxing them on Gounod and Rossini.
MENDEL
Pappelmeister's idea of relaxation ! / should have
given them comic opera.
[ With sudden call to Kathleen, who with her mistress is at
the wrong exit."]
Kathleen ! The elevator's this side !
KATHLEEN
l^Turning.']
Sure, how can that be, when I came up this side ^
MENDEL
You chatter too much.
[Frau Quixano, not understanding, exit.']
Come this way. Can't you see the elevator ?
KATHLEEN
\_Perceives Frau Quixano has gone, calls after her in Irish-
sounding Yiddish.']
Wo geht IJir, bedad .? . . .
\Impatiently?[
Houly Moses, kormn snrick!
[Exit anxiously, 7-e-enter with Frau Quixano.]
THE MELTING-POT 1 83
Begorra, we Jews never know our way.
[Mendel, carrying the violin, escorts his another and Kath-
leen to the elevator. When they are near it, it stops
with a thud, and Pappelmeister springs out, his um-
brella up, meeting them face to face. He looks happy
and beaming over David's triumph^
PAPPELMEISTER
\In loud,joyotis voice ^
Nun, Frait Qtiixano, tuas sagen Sie ? Vat you tink
of your David ?
FRAU QUIXANO
Dovid? Er ist vteshiiggah.
\She taps her forehead.~\
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Puzzled, to Mendel.]
Meshuggah! WaXvaQdins 'mesh7iggah? Crazy .''
MENDEL
\_H'alf-smiling.~\
You've struck it. She says David doesn't know
enough to go in out of the rain.
\_General laughter^
DAVID
\_Risi7ig.'\
But it's stopped raining, Herr Pappelmeister. You
don't want your umbrella.
[ General laughter.']
1 84 THE MELTING-POT
PAPPELMEISTER
So.
\_Shuts it down.']
MENDEL
Herein, Mutter.
\_He pushes Frau Quixano's somewhat shrinking form into
the elevator. Kathleen /^//<?wj-, then Mendel.]
Herr Pappelmeister, we are all your grateful ser-
vants.
[Pappelmeister bows ; the gates close, the elevator descends.]
DAVID
And you won't think me ungrateful for running
away — you know my thanks are too deep to be
spoken.
PAPPELMEISTER
And zo are my congratulations !
DAVID
Then, don't speak them, please.
PAPPELMEISTER
But you must come and speak to all de people in
America who undershtand music.
DAVID
{Half -smiling^
To your four connoisseurs .-*
{Seriously.]
Oh, please ! I really could not meet strangers, espe-
cially musical vampires.
THE MELTING-POT 1 85
PAPPELMEISTER
[Half -startled, half-angryj\
Vampires ? Oh, come !
DAVID
Voluptuaries, then — rich, idle aesthetes to whom
art and life have no connection, parasites who suck
our music —
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Laughs good-?iaturedfy J]
Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Vait till you hear vat dey say.
DAVID
I will wait as long as you like,
PAPPELMEISTER
Den I like to tell you now.
\_IIe roars with mischievous laughter^
Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! De first vampire says it is a great
vork, but poorly performed.
DAVID
[^Indignant.l
Oh!
PAPPELMEISTER
De second vampire says it is a poor vork, but
greatly performed.
DAVID
\_Disappointed. ]
Oh!
1 86 THE MELTING-POT
PAPPELMEISTER
De dird vampire says it is a great vork greatly,
performed.
DAVID
[ Complacently^
Ah!
PAPPELMEISTER
And de fourz vampire says it is a poor vork poorly
performed.
DAVID
\Angry and disappointed.'\
Oh!
\_Then smilingT^
You see you have to go to the people after all.
PAPPELMEISTER
\Shakes head, smiling.']
Nein. Ven critics disagree — I agree mit mine-
self. Ha! Ha! Ha!
\He slaps David on the back.']
A great vork dat vill be even better performed
next time ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ten dousand congratu-
lations.
\_IIe seizes David's hand, and grips it heartily. "]
DAVID
Don't ! You hurt me.
THE MELTING-POT 1 8/
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Droppmg David's hand, — misunderstanding.'^
Pardon ! I forget your vound.
DAVID
No — no — what does my wound matter? That
never stung half so much as these clappings and
congratulations.
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Puzzled but solicitous 7\
I knew your nerves vould be all shnapping like
fiddle-strings. Oh, you cheniuses !
\Siniling?[
You like neider de clappings nor de criticisms, —
was'?
DAVID
They are equally — irrelevant. One has to wrestle
with one's own art, one's own soul, alone !
PAPPELMEISTER
[Patting him soothingly.']
I am glad I did not let you blay in Part Two.
DAVID
Dear Herr Pappelmeister ! Don't think I don't
appreciate all your kindnesses — you are almost a
father to me.
1 88 THE MELTING-POT
PAPPELMEISTER
And you disobey me like a son. Ha ! Ha ! Ha !
Veil, I vill make your excuses to de — vampires. Ha !
Ha ! Also, David.
\_He lays his hand again affectionately on his right shoulderJ]
Lebe zvohl I I must go down to my popular classics.
[ Gloomily.']
Truly a going down ! Was ?
DAVID
\_Siniling.'\
Oh, it isn't such a descent as all that. Uncle said
you ought to have given them comic opera.
PAPPELMEISTER
\_Shuddering convulsively.]
Comic opera. . . . Ouf !
\_He goes toward the elevator and rings the bell. Then he
turns to David.]
Vat vas dat vord, David .''
DAVID
What word ?
PAPPELMEISTER
[ Groping for it.]
Meera — mep-assku . . .
THE MELTING-POT 1 89
DAVID
'[Puzzled^
MegassJiu ?
\_The elevator comes up ; the gates ope?i.'\
PAPPELMEISTER
Megusshah ! You know.
\_He taps his forehead with his uifibrella^
DAVID
Ah, meshuggah !
PAPPELMEISTER
[Joyously^
J a, meshuggah !
\_He gives a great roar of laughter. '\
Ha! Ha! Ha!
\_He waves umbrella at David.]
Well, don't be . . . meshuggah.
\_He steps into the elevator.~\
Ha! Ha! Ha!
\The gates close, and it descends with his laughter.'\
DAVID
\_After a patisel\
Perhaps I am . . . mesJiuggah.
\_He walks up and down moodily, approaches the parapet at
back.']
190 THE MELTING-POT
Dropping down is indeed natural.
\_He looks overI\
How it tugs and drags at one !
\He moves back resolutely and shakes his head.']
That would be even a greater descent than Pappel-
meister's to comic opera. One must fly upward —
somehow.
[He drops on the chair that Mendel dried. A faint music
steals up and makes an accompaniment to all the rest
of the scene.]
Ah ! the popular classics !
[His head sinks on a little table. The elevator comes tip
again, but he does not raise his head. Vera, pale and
sad, steps out and walks gently over to him ; stands
looking at him with maternal pity ; theti decides not to
disturb him and is stealing away when suddenly he
looks up and perceives her and springs to his feet with a
dazed glad cry.]
Vera !
VERA
[Turns, speaks with grave dignity.]
Miss Andrews has charged me to convey to you
the heart-felt thanks and congratulations of the Set-
tlement.
DAVID
[Frozen.]
Miss Andrews is very kind. ... I trust you are
well.
THE MELTING-POT 191
VERA
Thank you, Mr. Ouixano. Very well and very
busy. So you'll excuse me.
\She turns to go^
DAVID
Certainly. ... How are your folks .-•
VERA
\Turns her head.~\
They are gone back to Russia, And yours }
DAVID
You just saw them all.
VERA
[ Confused.']
Yes — yes — of course — I forgot ! Good-bye, Mr.
Quixano.
DAVID
Good-bye, Miss Revendal.
\^He drops back on the bench. Vera walks to the elevator,
then just before ringing turns again."]
VERA
I shouldn't advise you to sit here in the damp,
DAVID
My uncle dried the chair.
{^Bitierly.]
Curious how every one is concerned about my body
and no one about my soul.
192 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
Because your soul is so much stronger than your
body. Why, think ! It has just lifted a thousand
people far higher than this roof-garden.
DAVID
Please don't you congratulate me, too ! That
would be too ironical.
VERA
\_Agitated, coming nearer^
Irony, Mr. Quixano .-* Please, please, do not im-
agine there is any irony in my congratulations.
DAVID
The irony is in all the congratulations. How can
I endure them when I know what a terrible failure
I have made !
VERA
Failure ! Because the critics are all divided .''
That is the surest proof of success. You have pro-
duced something real and new.
DAVID
I am not thinking of Pappelmeister's connoisseurs.
— / am the only connoisseur, the only one who
knows. And every bar of my music cried " Fail-
ure ! Failure ! " It shrieked from the violins, blared
from the trombones, thundered from the drums. It
was written on all the faces —
THE MELTING-POT 193
VERA
[ Vehemently, comitig still nearer^
Oh, no ! no ! I watched the faces — those faces of
toil and sorrow, those faces from many lands. They
were fired by your vision of their coming brother-
hood, lulled by your dream of their land of rest.
And I could see that you were right in speaking
to the people. In some strange, beautiful way the
inner meaning of your music stole into all those
simple souls —
DAVID
\_Springing t{p.~\
And my soul } What of my soul .-' False to its
own music, its own mission, its own dream. That is
what I mean by failure, Vera. I preached of God's
Crucible, this great new continent that could melt up
all race-differences and vendettas, that could purge
and re-create, and God tried me with his supremest
test. He gave me a heritage from the Old World,
hate and vengeance and blood, and said, " Cast it all
into my Crucible." And I said, " Even thy Crucible
cannot melt this hate, cannot drink up this blood."
And so I sat crooning over the dead past, gloating
over the old blood-stains — I, the apostle of America,
the prophet of the God of our children. Oh — how
my music mocked me ! And you — so fearless, so
high above fate — how you must despise me !
VERA
I .? Ah no !
o
194 THE MELTING-POT
DAVID
You must. You do. Your words still sting.
Were it seven seas between us, you said, our love
must cross them. And I — I who had prated of
seven seas —
VERA
Not seas of blood — I spoke selfishly, thoughtlessly.
I had not realised that crimson flood. Now I see it
day and night. O God !
\She shtidders and covers her eyes,^
DAVID
There lies my failure — to have brought it to your
eyes, instead of blotting it from my own.
VERA
No man could have blotted it out.
DAVID
Yes — by faith in the Crucible. From the blood
of battlefields spring daisies and buttercups. In the
divine chemistry the very garbage turns to roses.
But in the supreme moment my faith was found want-
ing. You came to me — and I thrust you away.
VERA
I ought not to have come to you. ... I ought
not to have come to you to-day. We must not meet
again.
DAVID
Ah, you cannot forgive me !
THE MELTING-POT 1 95
VERA
Forgive ? It is I that should go down on my knees
for my father's sin.
\She is half-sinking to her knees. He stops her by a gesture
and a cry^
DAVID
No ! The sins of the fathers shall not be visited
on the children.
VERA
My brain follows you, but not my heart. It is heavy
with the sense of unpaid debts — debts that can only
cry for forgiveness.
DAVID
You owe me nothing —
VERA
But my father, my people, my country. . . ,
\_She breaks down. Recovers herself.']
My only consolation is, you need nothing.
DAVID
\_Dazed.'\
I — need — nothing ?
VERA
Nothing but your music . . . your dreams.
DAVID
And your love .-' Do I not need that }
196 THE MELTING-POT
VERA
\_Shaking her head sadly ^
No.
DAVID
You say that because I have forfeited it.
VERA
It is my only consolation, I tell you, that you do
not need me. In our happiest moments a suspicion
of this truth used to lacerate me. But now it is my
one comfort in the doom that divides us. See how
you stand up here above the world, alone and self-suffi-
cient. No woman could ever have more than the
second place in your life.
DAVID
But you have s^q first place, Vera !
VERA
\Shakes her head again.']
No — I no longer even desire it. I have gotten
over that womanly weakness.
DAVID
You torture me. What do you mean 1
VERA
What can be simpler ? I used to be jealous of your
music, your prophetic visions. I wanted to come
first — before them all! Now, dear David, I only
pray that they may fill your life to the brim.
THE MELTING-POT 197
DAVID
But they cannot.
VERA
They will — have faith in yourself, in your mission
— good-bye.
DAVID
\Dazed?\
You love me and you leave me ?
VERA
What else can I do ? Shall the shadow of Kishineff
hang over all your years to come ? Shall I kiss you
and leave blood upon your lips, cling to you and be
pushed away by all those cold, dead hands ?
DAVID
\Taking both her hands. 1
Yes, cling to me, despite them all, cling to me till
all these ghosts are exorcised, cling to me till our
love triumphs over death. Kiss me, kiss me now.
VERA
\_Resisting, drawing back.'\
I dare not ! It will make you remember.
DAVID
It will make me forget. Kiss me.
\There is a pause of hesitation, filled up by the Cathedral
music from Faust surging up softly from below.'\
198 THE MELTIN'G-POT
VERA
\_Slo'wly.'\
I will kiss you as we Russians kiss at Easter — the
three kisses of peace.
\She kisses him three times on the tnouth as in ritual solem-
nity.']
DAVID
[ Very calmly.']
Easter was the date of the massacre — see ! I am
at peace.
VERA
God grant it endure !
\_They stand quietly hand in hand.]
Look ! How beautiful the sunset is after the storm !
[David turns. The sunset, which has begun to gj-ow beauti-
ful just after Vera's entrance, has now reached its most
magnificent moment ; below there are narrozv lines of
saffron and pale gold, but above the whole sky is one
glory of burning flame.]
DAVID
\JProphetically exalted by the spectacle^
It is the fires of God round His Crucible.
\_He drops her hand and points downward.]
There she hes, the great Melting-Pot — listen !
Can't you hear the roaring and the bubbling ? There
gapes her mouth
THE MELTTNG-POT 199
\_He points east^
— the harbour where a thousand mammoth feeders
come from the ends of the world to pour in their
human freight. Ah, what a stirring and a seething !
Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and Syrian,
— black and yellow —
VERA
\^Softly, nestling to him.']
Jew and Gentile —
DAVID
Y ■>, East and West, and North and South, the palm
and the pine, the pole and the equator, the crescent
and the cross — how the great Alchemist melts and
fuses them with his purging flame ! Here shall they
all unite to build the Republic of Man and the King-
dom of God. Ah, Vera, what is the glory of Rome
and Jerusalem where all nations and races come to
worship and look back, compared with the glory of
America, where all races and nations come to labour
and look forward !
\^Ile raises his hands in benediction over the shining eity.J
Peace, peace, to all ye unborn millions, fated to fill
this giant continent — the God of our children give
you Peace.
\_An instajifs solemn pause. The sunset is swiftly fading,
and the vast panorama is suffusedwith a more restful twi-
light^ to which the many-gleaming lights of the town add
20O THE MELTING-POT
the tender poetry of the night. Far back, like a lonely,
beautiful star, twinkles over the da7-kening water the
torch of the Statue of Liberty. From below comes up
the softened sotind of voices and instruments joining
in "My Country^ Uis of Thee." The curtain falls
slowly^
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